Another short story to get me warmed up for NaNoWriMo. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think, the good, the bad, just not the ugly. If you don’t have time for a comment then you can just rate the story for now. Thanks for reading.

Sirens screeched out into the morning mist announcing their approach. Lights red and white flashed on their box. A woman’s voice interrupted with peppering of static over the radio said, “EMS 23 caller advises that patient in not breathing at this time.” Paramedic Scott Johnson lifts the radio receiver to speak into it. “EMS 23 copies Central, we’re about two minutes out.” Scott had been a paramedic for three years, it didn’t seem like along time until you realize that most paramedics don’t make it 18 months in the field before they break. So many people get into the job thinking it will be all fun and games, just like it is on TV and in the movies. The first time they have to look into a mother’s eyes and tell her that her two year old kid is dead, or tries to explain to a child why Momma and Daddy won’t wake up while the drug needle still hang from their arm, well that usually weeds out the wannabes from those that can emotionally handle the job. Then there is the physical demands. Constantly lifting and moving people that weigh as much as a refrigerator, getting up and down throughout the night, working for as much as 36 or 48 hours because they don’t have any relief for you, being forced to fight for your life against drug addicts and psychotic patients in a six foot by eight foot metal box traveling 60 miles per hour down the road because they suddenly want to kill you. Three years was a long time in this career. Long enough in fact that Scott had already seen more deaths and more tragedy than he could count. And now he was driving head first into another one.

This is an experiment in Horror.  In an effort to ready myself of NaNoWriMo I’m attempting to write in every genre I can over the next few weeks.  I have never written any type of horror before, so this truly is an experiment for me.  If you like it, let me know.  If you don’t, let me know.  Also I don’t consider myself a great writer by any means, and often times don’t even consider myself a good writer, but I’m trying to get better.  So constructive criticism only please. Enjoy the tale.

Chelsea awoke in the darkness.  Where was she?  She was cold and wet.  What was that smell?  The stench made her stomach lurch as it forced her to spill it’s contents out. What had happened to her?  Last thing she remembered was getting into a taxi after a night at the club with her BFF.  Oh my god, Jessica.  Where was she? The faint distant sound of water falling caught her ears.  And something else, just barely there.  Chelsea listened hard for a moment.  What was that? It sounded like a, a siren, a cat?  Screaming? Crying? It almost didn’t sound human. Was it Jessica? Chelsea screamed calling out to her missing friend, “Jessica! Jessi!” No response just the muffled cries coming from somewhere far off drowned out by the sounds of falling water.  Another wave of nausea struck her, and she vomited up more Martini mixed with bile.  Her hair was matted to her cheeks and neck.  Her clothes were still intact if not ruined by the vomit inducing liquid she was kneeling in.  She began to explore her surroundings with her hands completely unable to see anything.  The walls seemed to curve up and felt of smoothed stone.  No not stone, brick.  “My god,” she thought,”I’m in the sewer.”  The thought caused another episode of coughing vomit to explode from her stomach.  Unable to stand in the short tube, Chelsea began to crawl through the sewage taking short breathes through her mouth, trying not to smell the stench.  She didn’t know where to go, or how to get out.  So she headed towards the muffled cries, slowly, carefully.

The report of the explosions echoed in the steel framed warehouse.  The shock waves loosening decades of rust to fall free from their perches.  A loose piece of ventilation ducting fell from the high ceiling and landed on shadowed figure that tried to dive out of it’s way.  John pushed the ducting off him, his head now throbbing from the impact.  He shook his head a few times to straighten his vision and quiet the ringing in his ears.  This was no time to be at less than one hundred percent.  What with the bad guys chasing him, his supermodel girlfriend in the hands of the evil mastermind, and calvary still way too far out to be of any help.

The sweat slid down his brow mixing with the blood from the fresh cut under his eye.  His breathing deep and labored.  No matter how fast John breathed it felt as if he were out of breath.  The mixture of dust, sand, and rust floating in the air stung as it clung to his eyes and filled his lungs.  The sound of muffled voices barking in the warehouse brought John to his senses.  He glanced around quickly looking for an avenue of escape.  A small sliver of daylight behind a large wooden crate caught his attention.  He got to his feet and began running, nearing the crate before gun fire rung out behind him.  Shards of splintered wood leapt from the crates as he ran by them, the bullets missing him by mere inches.

(I had originally posted this in February 2008 at one of my previous blogs Fictionalized Fiction)

The night was still. Not even crickets could be heard over the silence. How many nights like this had the shadowy figured watched over? Ha had long last count. This is Malik, a night watchman over the small quiet forest village of Dugar. Atop his precarious post, a small stage barely the size of a child’s bed, he knelt silently and still watching and listening for any signs of possible attack. Despite the fact that Dugar was in essence a simple insignificant town, barely a community, they kept a constant watch, especially in these dangerous and troubled times. With the hood of his cloak covering his head and the bottom fanning our around him not even the most perceptive of creatures could have detected him kneeling there in his mist gray cloak. This was the way Malik enjoyed it, him alone against the wilderness keeping his senses on the edge between alertness and instinctual reaction.