A Dog Ate My Wookie!

My First Chapter: Natures Wrath

Puppy | Mar 15, 2010 | Comments 0

Well I thought I’d posted this but it must have been on the old server and not copied across. DOH!!!

So this is my first chapter with some anonymous critiques. It’s the second draft sooooo you know there are some changes from the original but the comedic brokeback relationship is still there. Actually I don’t know how those overtones crept in but they did… Oh well. You’ll love it… I hope.

I’m not overly convinced though… I really don’t think it’s up to scratch but then again, what do I know?

This was actually one of three concepts that I thought of but people liked this one more so this is where the book begins, if it does turn into a book. I get bored ever so easily and Fantasy? I’m a horror man… why is this not horror?

Natures Wrath

By Clifford J Green

Chapter One: Inferno

Today I Die… It was a feeling I had every so often in my life. First time was when I didn’t do my history homework at the ripe old age of twelve. I was a good kid you see and I thought such an offence was punishable by death.

Then there was that time I drank so much, I threw up for three straight hours. My system was empty but my body would not be happy until my bowels had been expunged; even if that meant evacuating all major organs that got in the way.

But I digress. Today was a bad day. Not even the beauty of a glacial scene could shake this feeling. This Dread.

It was a powerful feeling. One that kept the chill of the Antarctic at bay. Here we were miles away from civilisation. A research crew from the United Nations. Global warming had melted away the glacial ice caps within a single year. All but one remained and we were about to crack it open like an egg.

A mass had been discovered deep within this palatial glacier. Measuring fifteen hundred feet in height and another two thousand below sea level. This was a behemoth of ice. An island so pure that had there not been something obscuring the view within, I’m sure we would have been able to see through to the other side.

It was like glass and I felt like Alice about to step through the mirror into another world.

“You seen Alien Vs. Predator, mate?” came a voice from behind me. I startled myself. That’s another thing about dread, if you’re caught off guard your heart leaps from your chest to your throat faster than a jack rabbit.

It was Alex, an Australian historian. I could have sworn he received his doctorate from a cereal box or perhaps one of those online courses where they give you a certificate for breaking wind.

I laughed and cringed at once as a burly worker to my left started to drill into the ice. The bit of the drill slipped and caused mild alarm for the operator but with a little pressure and a second attempt, the drill bit took and began to dig deep into the ice.

“You’re going to try and convince me that there’s a thousand foot face hugger in there?” I responded with a mild humour that Alex understood. He loved dry wit and us Brits had it in spades.

“Twelve hundred feet, mate.” He pulled out a vague out of focus image. The card looked in tatters, he had been carrying it around with him since we’d first scanned the object. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that the image before me was a masturbation aid for Alex. It was lonely being isolated out here for such an extensive time period.

Alex took great joy in showing me the image we had been briefed on a hundred times or so before. His puffed up gloved hand ran from the top to the bottom of the card. The egg shaped mass that was the large ice castle in front of us was translucent in this image. The mass inside was not.

A chill suddenly took hold of me. Not even the thick padding of our identical thermal uniforms could keep us warm. Bright orange on an icy float in the middle of the Antarctic. As a child I’d always wanted to see the world. If I wanted to see this, I would have opened a fridge freezer.

Continuing on with his explanation. Alex began to use physical gestures to explain the sheer size of the mass. I would have pointed out that the thing was right in front of us. About two hundred feet away to be exact. You couldn’t miss it, it was the proverbial white elephant in the middle of the room.

That’s when he pointed down to the ice that held us above the darkest water I had ever seen.

“Below us? It’s some kind of thick shaft which gets thinner as it reaches a point.” He grinned as he thought of the euphemism. “That’s the extra two hundred feet, making this thing the size of the Empire State building. This thing could make our careers as historians and geologists. This team could have discovered the first ever face hugger.”

Alex laughed as I shoved him away, his boots lost grip momentarily and he slid unceremoniously for a few feet. “It’s not a fucking face hugger but it’s not something I think we should be messing with either.” I sighed and the warm breath froze instantly. The fog that passed from my lips dissipated. It was cold but thanks to the harsh climate change in the past year, not cold enough for any vital equipment to freeze and snap off.

This ice island we were on probably only had a year left before it succumbed to the new temperatures of the Antarctic. The fact that it was floating towards warmer climates only cemented its demise.

Yet here we were, drilling a multitude of holes around the weakest points of the ice structure. The dome, the egg.

If you want my opinion, the egg description everyone else was using only related to whatever was inside the ice. The exterior of the structure itself was jagged and dripping away, ever so slowly under the suns watchful gaze.

We looked through charts, images and temperature readings. It was all dull and boring geological surveys while the grunts or students drilled into the structure to weaken it. As Alex only said the night before, We’re gonna crack this fucker open, mate!

At one point the monotonous tones of the drills shredding the ice filled the heavens like an unholy choir. The groans of resistance shattered the serenity of the scene. The gentle lashing of the sea as it tipped onto the ice made me more wary of the spot Alex and I had chosen to stand but I did not want to get any closer to the egg, than I had to.

It was strange to be on this glacial rock yet be so close to Poseidon’s bosom; he could call up a squall and wash us away at any given moment. How I prayed he would protect whatever was in this shell but as the first panicked cry sounded. I knew my assumptions regarding the danger were well founded.

“It looked AT ME!” I heard the cry again, a group of about twenty had begun rushing towards the source. It was on the other side of the dome.

Alex looked at me…

“Did… did he say, It looked at him?” I could see the confusion behind his goggled eyes. condensation occurred with every exhale in his visor but I could still see the confusion.

“THERE, look!!” Another cry in the distance, carried on the wind like a bird soaring past my ears. Something was wrong. Men dress as we were in bright orange pants and jackets ran towards the epicentre of distress.

Alex had begun to move towards the commotion. My arm as if it had a mind of its own had decided it wanted to keep Alex where he was. I had blocked his path. There was no desire or compunction to be part of what was unfurling before us.

The holes that had been created in the ragged ice began to crack as if the thing within was beginning to expand.

“Mate… What’s going on?” The ice beneath us shifted violently as the jagged egg shaped mountain in the centre dropped sharply beneath the water. Leaving a large donut-shaped hole in the centre. The cries of men came from every direction.

The ice below us, shook and trembled on the water. The dislodging of the huge mass was enough to rock the very foundations of our little island.

I imagined these were the sounds of a war zone. “It had an eye!!” I saw one man scream as he slid towards the hole in the ice. If he went into the water, the black ocean would swallow him whole.

I hadn’t realised that during the mayhem I’d adopted a surfer pose, knees bent, arms outstretched trying to maintain my balance. Which was not easy as Alex had now become the face hugger he had been harping on about only moments earlier. His legs were akimbo and his arms had wrapped themselves around my left thigh. He was on his knees, in any other situation not involving such heavy protective gear, this could have been embarrassing. Or arousing, I hadn’t decided.

Another cry in the distance. The man had been saved from a watery, icy grave.

However there was more danger. Alex had begun to babble, as I began to move to the equipment tent.

“Bubbling!” Alex proclaimed pointing at the neat circular hole in the centre of the ice. Our Island was shrinking from the inside out. The vessel we had travelled in on was not due to return for another three days. We were self sufficient but we weren’t prepared for this.

“Shut up!” I said as I slipped free of his grasp.

“We’re going to be fine, I promise.” What was I doing? The ground beneath us had literally begun to crack. I heard the sound of popping as though a flame had discovered an air pocket in a log. Crack.

Another split in the ice and the island itself began to move apart. We had become floating pie chart now. The resource tent fell into the ocean, taking crew and equipment with it. Food supplies and generators followed.

Men ashamedly dove in after them never to be seen again. It was I this time who held on to Alex. I was his Frodo and he was my Sam. Sexual connotations and puns included.

We were scared. I could feel him tremble. Not from the cold but out of fear of plunging into the black abyss that was lapping over the side of our twelve foot ice raft.

The makeshift raft of ours began to move away from the scene unfolding before us. Where the section of ice had collapsed the seas hand begun to bubble and steam. Heated? I thought to myself as the steam began to rise at an accelerated pace.

A flume of water pelted hundreds of feet into the air. I’d never seen Yellowstone but I imagined it to look something like this. Gravity took hold of the geyser and brought heated drops crashing back down to the sea and the surrounding ice.

I saw one man, on a platform of ice just like my own. He screamed in agony and raised his arms to his face. The acrylic lining to his jacket had melted away, had we been close enough at the time I’m sure the exposed flesh on the man’s face would have met the same fate.

He threw himself into the water. It was his only option his ice raft had become practically non existent.

Alex began to grip tighter. I swear the man would have kissed me if he hadn’t been wearing the heated face mask and the orange condom. The whole kit acted as one big chastity device. It took thirty minutes to get into it and another thirty to get out. Fore play is fun and all but there are times you just need to cut out the middle man.

Then came the roar. A death knell. From beneath the bubbling furnace we had just witnessed, a deep thunderous growl. A thousand werewolves come to play? Everyone knew werewolves couldn’t swim. Could They?

The look on the faces of those around me and in the distance said it all. This was about to become an every man for himself situation. The unknown had a habit of bringing out the base instincts in a person. Historians such as Alex had told that story many times over.

“Fight or flight,” I said to myself. The only problem was, we were so isolated that flight meant either freeze or face whatever was coming.

“It’s the Kraken!” Alex cried in sheer terror. It cracked with those words. The part of the ice we had positioned ourselves on had cracked, splitting in half! Our twelve foot had reduced to approximately nine. The current was taking us away from the scene at a faster pace. I must admit this was the moment I decided to wet myself a little bit. Alex and I were to be lost at sea on a rapidly melting life raft and all they would know from the autopsy? I had wet myself and died from exposure. I imagined a coroner saying, “The dirty bastard couldn’t even whip it out and piss over the side. Disgusting…”

It was a shameful revelation. Especially with what was occurring before our eyes.

We must have been a mile or so away from any other crew member now. Poseidon’s currents were strong and fast, they had spirited us away from any impending danger.

What occurred next heralded catastrophic results. The island of ice or should that be pie chart or even donut of ice? The donut of ice, weakened from the continued geyser from below. Men flew approximately twenty feet or so into the air, free falling into the ocean or back down onto the ice with a devastating smack. I couldn’t imagine many would be moving after such an impact. Broken limbs would have prevented it.

Then it occurred again, although this time the weakened ice split, cracked and smashed into slush. No one was prepared for what followed. The men who were thrown into the air this time were caught in a fiery maw. A snout as big as a house launched free from beneath the bubbling surf. The icy prison was no longer an issue for the beast from below.

And no, that was not a euphemism for my penis.

The emergence of what appeared to be a snout, a maw, was a shock to both Alex and I. We were on our knees, floating away from the disaster, the devastation. The sun that was once high in the sky had now become shadowed by the most magnificent sight.

It wasn’t a dinosaur. In fact the only place anyone had heard of such a beast was from tales of old. Medieval tales of brave knights who saved fair maidens from the snapping maw of bloodthirsty dragons.

This was a dragon and not a friendly beast like Elliot from Pete’s Dragon. This beast had snacked on some of the greatest minds in the world. In only minutes it had obliterated an island the size of Jersey in the Channel Islands as if were an afterthought.

We had freed this thing. This midnight black lizard with a wing span that could rival a land mass the size of England, well maybe half of England. Give me a break, I was in shock at this point and it’s my god given right as a human being to embellish on my final moments on this earth.

The total eclipse faded. More men screamed in the distance as a torrent of fire spewed forth like bile and vomit from the beast’s grizzly chops. They burned, they cooked faster than any implement on the home shopping network could or would have sold.

Destruction equal to that of a tidal wave or earthquake. It was all over in minutes but unlike those natural disasters… This one had the ability to fly, to move freely. This was a warning. This was nature’s gift, her wrath for our misdeed.

I pulled Alex down to lay flush with our icy raft. We closed our eyes and prayed. The roar in the distance meant our prayers had been answered, the beast was moving away.

I was never a religious man and I’m still not but it’s nice to know, you can trick the big guy upstairs now and again.

Today I should have died.

But somehow I survived.

Comment #1: Hooray one copy sold and it’s not even finished.

Clifford, I love it, I would buy the book! Your vivid description of certain items brought some humor into the scary scenes, such as:

I swear the man would have kissed me if he hadn’t been wearing the heated face mask and the orange condom.

Bravo! I can’t find anything I didn’t like, it brings you along with anticipation to find out what is in the ice! Kudos1

Comment #2: More positive feedback… good good

Great first sentence and the echo of it at the end of the chapter rounds the piece off nicely. Love your blend of humour and horror – you’ve got a really distinctive voice. I particularly enjoyed the paragraph with the ‘surfer pose’ – such a strong image

Comment #3: God, this woman was the talented one of the class. Whenever she posted her work I wanted to find the nearest american and punch them.

Although the ‘had’ stuff she is right about but then again I never pay attention to what I’m writing, while I’m writing it. That and I never re-read my stuff because I’m the harshest critic I know lol

Great opening hook and like I’ve said a million times I love your narrative voice. It’s humorous, engaging, and different (in a good way) and with tons of great lines that stick with you (like the condom one and the one about the guy getting his degree from a cereal box-brilliant!). You may want to eliminate a few uses of the word “had”–see if you can find a more active way of stating things there, but otherwise you have got a fresh voice that I would love to see more of–get it out there!

Comment #4: Hooray another plus