All done, and treat for you
Oct. 31st, 2007 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltd10,095 words!
I have saved the world using only three werewolves and a half-sidhe!
"Miskatonic Mistletoe" is done and I'm proofing and sending it tomorrow.
~~~~~
I didn't win Apex's contest, so as a small treat, here's a work-safe bit of horror called "Show your Faces"
Show your faces
by Angelia Sparrow
I sat quietly in the 280s, cataloging. I was typing a subject card for Tertullian. I scowled at the book. One of my least favorite theologians. The little solar-powered battery lamp glowed beside me, and I banged away at the old manual typewriter, my fingers aching and feeling all mushy at the tips. It all seemed so silly. I kept cataloging, because it was all I could do. It was all that kept me sane. Of course, it had become harder without electricity or computers, but I found an old Smith-Corona in the storage room and pushed it through the stacks on a cart, re-creating the obsolete card catalog.
I smiled at the memory of using the old cards for notepads. I'd salvaged as many as I could on The Badger's orders. She'd been an abrasive old lady, but a decent library director. Pity she decided to go to Mass last Good Friday. Brother Vincent got a little too theological, going on about “take, eat, this is my body.” Not the smartest thing to do in a chapel full of very hungry students and faculty. I didn't miss her much.
You can't teach starving people democracy. The Hunger Studies of the Second World War proved that. You apparently can't teach them theology either.
Bob had taken over, and decreed we would keep the library open, regardless. Viral warfare, nukes, hell or high water, the library would continue dispensing knowledge. So, we worked, just like always. Only one thing had really changed.
I lived in the library now. My family died of the plagues released in the viral warfare. The suburbs weren't safe; too many wild things were drifting in from the piney woods, and the ones that went on four legs weren't the worst. My urban library, surrounded by its high fence, with the guard booths turned into machine-gun nests, was far safer.
The lamp's battery was going, and I would have to set it out to charge in the morning. I called it a night for the cataloging. Not like I didn't have the rest of my life to accomplish it. I headed up to the roof-top garden we'd started as soon as we could. The peas would be ready in a couple days. I watered everything from the rain-barrel and checked the plants that were ready to bear.
My stomach rumbled. I only ate every other day now. Sometimes every third. The freeze-dried stuff we'd hoarded and the preserved and dried stuff from last year would run out soon. There were always squirrels and pigeons.
I picked up the secondary lantern that had charged most of the day by the tomato plants. That's when I saw him. Brother Michael was lurking between the zucchini and the tomato, his black clothes blending with the night, the filthy remains of his Lasallian collar in tatters at his throat. He screamed as I raised the lantern, yelling gibberish at me.
I ran for the elevator. He caught the door. I hammered at his fingers with the heavy base of the lantern and he let go when one broke. I slammed the door shut and worked the manual winch we'd installed.
I fled to the stacks, leaving the lantern by the typewriter. I didn't really need it to see. There was plenty of moonlight, and the exit signs still gleamed from their sealed battery packs.
I heard him come down the stairwell. He levered the heavy fire door open and started through the stacks. He found my cart and laughed, an insane sound.
“Cataloging. She was cataloging even now.”
His words were finally sounding sensible. That meant he was very dangerous now. It's always worse when they can think. I stayed still in the study carrel, feeling lead in my chest and in my hands.
I looked down and realized I had hold of the damned Tertullian. I must have picked it up when I set the lantern down.
I held my breath when Brother Michael found the carrel.
“There you are,” he said, raising the lantern. “The roof garden is a very clever lure, you evil thing. But I'm going to get rid of you now.”
I hit him with the Tertullian, putting all my arm behind it. He shook his head and raised the little blow-torch he was carrying. How was he fueling that? Gasoline was rarer than rubies in this second year after the War. Kerosene was no easier to get. I quit thinking and hit him again. He went down, dropping the blow-torch.
I pinned his shoulders to the floor with my knees and used the heavy book to batter open his skull. One more down. I breathed more easily and got up.
I ran one finger along the spine of the book, wiping away his blood and brains.
As I popped the finger in my mouth, my taste buds exploding in ecstasy, I realized at some level that being a member of a pack of cannibalistic plague-zombie librarians really was an unacceptable lifestyle choice.
But then, you can't teach starving people philosophy either.
I have saved the world using only three werewolves and a half-sidhe!
"Miskatonic Mistletoe" is done and I'm proofing and sending it tomorrow.
~~~~~
I didn't win Apex's contest, so as a small treat, here's a work-safe bit of horror called "Show your Faces"
Show your faces
by Angelia Sparrow
I sat quietly in the 280s, cataloging. I was typing a subject card for Tertullian. I scowled at the book. One of my least favorite theologians. The little solar-powered battery lamp glowed beside me, and I banged away at the old manual typewriter, my fingers aching and feeling all mushy at the tips. It all seemed so silly. I kept cataloging, because it was all I could do. It was all that kept me sane. Of course, it had become harder without electricity or computers, but I found an old Smith-Corona in the storage room and pushed it through the stacks on a cart, re-creating the obsolete card catalog.
I smiled at the memory of using the old cards for notepads. I'd salvaged as many as I could on The Badger's orders. She'd been an abrasive old lady, but a decent library director. Pity she decided to go to Mass last Good Friday. Brother Vincent got a little too theological, going on about “take, eat, this is my body.” Not the smartest thing to do in a chapel full of very hungry students and faculty. I didn't miss her much.
You can't teach starving people democracy. The Hunger Studies of the Second World War proved that. You apparently can't teach them theology either.
Bob had taken over, and decreed we would keep the library open, regardless. Viral warfare, nukes, hell or high water, the library would continue dispensing knowledge. So, we worked, just like always. Only one thing had really changed.
I lived in the library now. My family died of the plagues released in the viral warfare. The suburbs weren't safe; too many wild things were drifting in from the piney woods, and the ones that went on four legs weren't the worst. My urban library, surrounded by its high fence, with the guard booths turned into machine-gun nests, was far safer.
The lamp's battery was going, and I would have to set it out to charge in the morning. I called it a night for the cataloging. Not like I didn't have the rest of my life to accomplish it. I headed up to the roof-top garden we'd started as soon as we could. The peas would be ready in a couple days. I watered everything from the rain-barrel and checked the plants that were ready to bear.
My stomach rumbled. I only ate every other day now. Sometimes every third. The freeze-dried stuff we'd hoarded and the preserved and dried stuff from last year would run out soon. There were always squirrels and pigeons.
I picked up the secondary lantern that had charged most of the day by the tomato plants. That's when I saw him. Brother Michael was lurking between the zucchini and the tomato, his black clothes blending with the night, the filthy remains of his Lasallian collar in tatters at his throat. He screamed as I raised the lantern, yelling gibberish at me.
I ran for the elevator. He caught the door. I hammered at his fingers with the heavy base of the lantern and he let go when one broke. I slammed the door shut and worked the manual winch we'd installed.
I fled to the stacks, leaving the lantern by the typewriter. I didn't really need it to see. There was plenty of moonlight, and the exit signs still gleamed from their sealed battery packs.
I heard him come down the stairwell. He levered the heavy fire door open and started through the stacks. He found my cart and laughed, an insane sound.
“Cataloging. She was cataloging even now.”
His words were finally sounding sensible. That meant he was very dangerous now. It's always worse when they can think. I stayed still in the study carrel, feeling lead in my chest and in my hands.
I looked down and realized I had hold of the damned Tertullian. I must have picked it up when I set the lantern down.
I held my breath when Brother Michael found the carrel.
“There you are,” he said, raising the lantern. “The roof garden is a very clever lure, you evil thing. But I'm going to get rid of you now.”
I hit him with the Tertullian, putting all my arm behind it. He shook his head and raised the little blow-torch he was carrying. How was he fueling that? Gasoline was rarer than rubies in this second year after the War. Kerosene was no easier to get. I quit thinking and hit him again. He went down, dropping the blow-torch.
I pinned his shoulders to the floor with my knees and used the heavy book to batter open his skull. One more down. I breathed more easily and got up.
I ran one finger along the spine of the book, wiping away his blood and brains.
As I popped the finger in my mouth, my taste buds exploding in ecstasy, I realized at some level that being a member of a pack of cannibalistic plague-zombie librarians really was an unacceptable lifestyle choice.
But then, you can't teach starving people philosophy either.
