Give 'em Hell; short stories

An Alternative Place

Title: An Alternative Place
Genre: Apocalypse
Warnings: slight horror, physical violence

Description: Burma lives in a world turned upside down in an apocalypse where infected humans called the alters lurk in dark corners. The only way to survive is to stay alone and keep your eyes on your feet.

Note: This is written in movie script format and only shows one scene from an imaginary act, as this is just an idea. However there are slight descriptions added for the sake of reader understanding that wouldn't ordinarily be in an actual script.

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Camera panels out over a slightly overgrown farmhouse. There are pastures with no cattle or livestock of any kind, empty coops, a sun-bleached barn with a caved in roof, weeds everywhere, untrimmed grass, and so on. The sun is high in the sky--it is noon.

Camera switches to a shot from inside the barn. It's still for a moment, then there's a sudden noise of something falling down, and a bunch of crows and magpie fly up from the rafters and out the gaping hole in the roof. A second later, a boy stumbles out from under a loft, patting dust off his shoulder. He wears a backpack, large baggy jeans and an oversized shirt.

Boy (Burma): Figures, there's nothing here too.

A calico cat leaps down from atop the loft and meows in response to Burma.

Burma: Don't worry, Fillis. There's probably something down the road at the next house...

One last crow flies out through the hole in the roof.

Burma: Though of course, we could always just eat a crow. Wouldn't be the first time, yeah?

The cat (Fillis) trots up ahead, exiting the barn through the open pull-doors. Burma follows, having to climb over the mess of the fallen roof. He gets into the driveway where Fillis is now rolling in the dirt under the sun.

Burma: Come on Fillis, who knows how far the next house is.

They head down the driveway, but Burma stops, standing near the farmhouse.

Burma: I suppose it wouldn't hurt to check one last time. I didn't look in the drawing room, maybe there could be something we could use as a weapon? He looks down at Fillis. Come on buddy.

They step inside through a window Burma had previously broken with a rock. Inside, the furniture is musty and dust clings to every surface. Burma heads up the staircase to go to the drawing room, and Fillis follows.

Camera changes to a shot of a darker room where the blinds are drawn. There is something moving, unseen through the shadows.

Camera cuts back to Burma as he rolls open the glass doors of the drawing room, the doors creaking and groaning as he does so. Burma and Fillis enter.

Burma: We haven't seen an altered in a while, have we?

He looks around as he talks.

Burma: Our luck is bound to run out. There will probably be a few at our next stop.

Fillis spots a grasshopper and begins chasing it. He runs out the room, trying to catch it. Burma chuckles, and begins to rummage through a sewing desk. He breaks off one of the spindles and pokes the tip with his finger. After deciding it is sharp, he puts it in his backpack and gets up to find Fillis. As he emerges from the drawing room, he sees Fillis staring between the gap of the wall and back of a couch where the grasshopper fled to.

Burma: Come on Fillis, we gotta go. It's gonna be a long walk.

Fillis is still fixated on the grasshopper so Burma nudges him with his foot. The cat gets startled, and loses the grasshopper. Fillis then trots ahead of Burma, per the usual, to head back downstairs.

Burma: Hey, wait up!

Burma hurries to the top of the stairs and immediately freezes. At the base of the stairs stands an altered, (an infected human) staring up at him. Burma immediately turns his back to it. He knows that if one doesn't make eye contact, the altered won't attack.

Burma, whispering: Fillis...

Fillis is staring down at the altered. The altered is missing patches of hair and its skin turned rather gray from a lack of melanin. It had been staying in the house for possibly a year without moving, until it heard Burma and Fillis come inside.

Fillis makes eye contact with the altered, and the creature starts to murmur and foam at the mouth.

Burma: Fillis-

The altered leaps up the stairs to attack Fillis. It's falling over itself, beating itself up just to reach the cat. Its gummy mouth can be seen where its very small, shrunken teeth can be revealed.

Burma: Fillis!

He grabs Fillis instinctively by the scruff of his neck and makes a run for it. The altered chases after, plowing through chairs and tables which Burma has overturned. There's a balcony up ahead, but glass doors block access to it. Burma throws Fillis up in his arm so that he has a better hold of him and rams a chair into the glass doors. This does nothing.

Burma curses and goes to run down a hall which leads to an arrangement of bedrooms. Standing in the hall, having just emerged from one of the rooms, is a child (F) altered, staring up at him. Burma avoids eye contact and runs to her, grabbing her by her wrist and yanking her back to the entrance of the balcony. He swings with the girl in his grasp and rams her through the window. The altered, being nearly indestructible, causes the window to shatter. The altered child flies outside and rams into the balcony railing, dead. The other altered is directly behind him, attempting to get Fillis and destroy him.

Burma: OH GOD!

Burma leaps through the broken glass door and heads right over the edges of the balcony. Fillis leaps from his arm and is able to run down the edge of the house safely, but Burma tumbles right over the railing and falls roughly onto the ground. The altered is screeching and crying up on the balcony, hissing at the smell of death from the altered child. The altered can't stand the smell of a death they weren't the cause of. It shrieks some more, backing away into the house.

Burma rolls over, propping himself up on his elbows, trying to get air back in his lungs. Fillis scampers up to him.

Burma: Get in the bag.

He sits up, taking off his backpack and opening it so that Fillis can leap inside. He is panting now. He slings the pack over his shoulder again and gets up, rubbing his lower back sorely.

Burma: Yeah... let's get out of here.

He hurries out the dirt roads and the scene ends.