Writing a Book

I would love to post some bits of it and see what the GC community has to say, but I worry about plagiarism. If anybody's interested I could probably just say, "fuck it" and go ahead and post a chapter or so anyway.

 

Post-apocalyptic United States. Everybody's drug-fueled savages.

 

Alright, but I really have no idea how good my work is. I find it difficult to critique it, as I always seem to pick at it when others would praise it. I'll be posting the prologue, but don't yell at me if it isn't what you expected

 

On my way out of high school as of right now. It's not exactly full of logical people (school of choice ftw), but once this year's over I'm off to college to try and get a job teaching. On the way there I'm sure I'll find some people to help criticize my work. But until then, I see nothing wrong with posting a tiny sample to get some feedback.

I do this, because if you get somebody you know to criticize your work, they will be biased, no matter how hard they try not to.

 

Prologue
To Be Politically Correct

\tThe date was May 14, 2024. We had been deployed three weeks prior and frankly, we were fucked. The British military was spread so thin across the coast that we may as well have been part of the bloody crowds. The only things that separated us from them were our gear and distinct lack of the bloodthirsty, irrational, and often downright animalistic qualities seen in the locals.
\tThere were three of us left out of the original four. Daniel “Mickey” McKormick, the Irish bastard, was the only one who seemed to keep an optimistic attitude. Everyone else had come to terms with the grim situation we found ourselves in. Kaitlyn Austen, who never seemed phased by anything, who always seemed to be in control when our wits failed us, was no silent and paranoid, insanity brewing behind her steel gaze.
Then there was James Crow, our ironically-named field medic, who was stabbed by a child while patrolling the streets of some hick town we'd come across. I died that day, as we shot her down. She was a child of maybe seven, and only went down after multiple bullet wounds, constantly getting up and screeching at us.
James didn't die right away, though he had attempted to, which resulted in us forcibly confiscating his weaponry. We tried to raid a pharmacy for anything that could help him, but were met with empty shelves and festering corpses. So, James Walter Crow bled out in a filthy Rite Aid that night. “Looks like the South is gonna take another n*****”, he said as he sat bleeding onto the tile flooring. He died quietly, laughing to himself.
We had no medic, no food, no ammunition, and our comms were out. The streets were often bare in the daylight hours, the residents preferring the cover of darkness.
Daniel walked amongst the abandoned vehicles, long drained of the fuel, kicking an empty can until it eventually ended up stuck under an exceptionally low-riding car. “Well shit, there goes the day's entertainment, he muttered, his face twisted into an almost unnatural looking grimace.
People peered out of windows and alleyways, but never went so far as to approach us, possibly due to our empty rifles, which we displayed proudly for all to see. They really were pieces of work, all covered in scabs, fingernails torn to the quick or missing. They coughed and vomited, often when trying to speak to you or one another, and it pissed them off often to the point of violence. Contact was “not advisable”, as our briefing had put it, and I must say that it was one point that command and I could agree on. They were animals, or to be politically correct, “insurgents”.
The world powers that be had decided that this whole zone was a liability. The politicians here had been hung, nailed to crosses, and burned alive. Apparently, the rest of the world found a ravenous horde of mindless civilians to be a threat, and I don't blame them.
Truth is, nobody knows why the fuck this happened. The country was in a bit of turmoil, but the debates seemed to be making some progress. Then, out of the blue the whole country took up arms and swarmed the local authorities and forced them to step down before murdering them publically. The power grids went out everywhere, and we lost communication. We show up and the general public is literally tearing itself apart. Now this place is a warzone, with every world power worth mentioning fighting for control.
If you ask me they should have quarantined the area. Nothing of this nature has ever been seen on this scale, and what do we do? We send our armed forces to go and get infected with some kinda mutant rabies. To the surprise of our superiors, Japan was hit with a very similar political uprising, and has since gone dark. China's problem now. Long story short, the human race is in trouble. There's a tension in the air, and nobody seems to be able to put a finger on it. I can. It's doom. There's doom in the air in this quiet little Southern town.
The streets were full of immense piles of garbage, in true third-world fashion. The smog-laced skyline brought with it feelings of hopelessness and despair. Just looking at it gave you a tight feeling in your chest which didn't seem to go away. Four days passed by, and we barely noticed. We didn't sleep, and robbed local stores for expired food.
On the fourth day, Dan drank the water. We hadn't been able to find the usual bottled water which we'd been advised to stick to. Nobody was sure what was causing this, and water-borne illness could easily be infecting these people with some kind of neurological disease. Even if they'd found out what was wrong with these people, we wouldn't know. Every single place we had been told to rendezvous at was empty when we arrived, with posted notices saying that nobody was coming to get us anytime soon. Two days without water and those tap water advisories don't mean jack-shit.
Dan drank from the rusty hose with haste, wincing in apparent pain, yet he continued to drink. He stopped abruptly, coughing and sputtering. “Stop… don't touch it… tastes fucked,” he gasped. “It tastes fucked? Can you elaborate mate?” I asked\t. “Just… different. Tastes like something you'd use to clean windows with. Strong, chemical taste to it.” We went without water that day, and at first Daniel seemed alright.
Around dust he began to talk to people who weren't there. “Maria, I fucking told you that we are in no position to be turning down an opportunity like this. No, I don't know what they're sending me into, but we don't even have heat anymore. We are going to freeze here.”
I stopped him, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Is everything alright? Is it the water?” “Fuck! You god damned thief! Don't touch me!” He recoiled and began to back away from us slowly. Tremors wracked his body. He looked like one of those smack addicts you'd see walking the streets back home as of late.
Kaitlyn acted without hesitation. She charged him, knocking him on his back. I snapped out of my astonished stupor and helped her restrain him. He struggled like an animal in a trap, spitting foam everywhere and snapping at us.
\tWe dragged him into a local restaurant and threw him in the now room-temperature freezer. We sat down at the bar, hoping to get drunk, only to find the beer spoiled and the hard liquor long gone.
Dan slammed his fists against the door like some kind of small child. He swore and yelled at more people I did not recognize, and I went numb. This was it, whatever had taken Mickey. This was what was going to end me.

 

This is not how the book is. This is a prologue. The real stuff happens twenty years later. The water's clean again and the people who haven't died's kid aren't lunatics by nature. Not to say the environment of violence and drug use down't turn them into lunatics eventually.

It's told from the point of view of two individuals who were born into this kind of anarchic state. Steam of consciousness is heavily used, and it has a Clockwork Orange type feel, or so I have been told. Personally, I'm fond of the later portions, but I had to set up the lore behind it, and I figured how better to do so than a first-person account of the events?

So enjoy, or not. I may or may not post more of this.

 

This is not complete, this is not even close. I wrote this after a serious insomnia attack so I was a bit of a zombie. I plan to clean it up a bit, and continue on until this guy either dies or goes home.

Also, before people start yelling at me for being underage, I am in fact 18. Senior year, bout fucking time.