Chapter a Day- rides on

Attention readers, aspiring authors, and curious agents:

As my faithful readers are aware, I have started a chapter a day writing challenge in which I crank out a single chapter per week day for six weeks. Recently, I upped the ante by adding to that challenge- one agent contact per day.

As this escapade gains momentum, I feel I need to set up a basic tally of my writing exploits to date, so here it goes:

Complete Manuscripts: 3

     Message In A Bottle (Crime drama)

     Contagion Protocol (Zombie horror)

     The SALAGIA Chronicles: Luxuria (Horror series)

Agent submissions: 34 (only five are less than a month old)

     15 for Message In A Bottle

     15 for Contagion Protocol

     04 for The SALAGIA Chronicles: Luxuria

Publishing House Submissions: 1

     Contagion Protocol

Gula- my new manuscript and the sequel to Luxuria, is the story I write a chapter a day on. Today, I finished chapter 12.

Of the thirty queries I sent out previous to this writing challenge, I have received 9 responses, all of which were naturally rejections.

I hope this track record will stand as a benchmark and this challenge will provide you with useful information, whether you are an aspiring author as I or a curious agent, seeking an eyeglass into the other side of the field; or just an amused reader, eager to heckle a guy's unyielding battle for success.

Nine Days, Nine Chapters

I love writing.

I love storytelling.

What I really love is writing that one perfect chapter that makes me feel like the whole world makes sense. Tonight, I wrote that chapter, the ninth in my chapter a day challenge.

Here's the first draft:

“I love the smell of tattoo shops, man!” The guy in the waiting area exclaims while flipping through the poster displays of flash art. He hops from one foot to the other and his excitement grows every time he runs across a piece of art that appeals to him. “I’ve been dying for this man, I’ve been dying for some more ink for weeks.”

The artist behind the counter smiles at his customer’s enthusiasm but says nothing as his gun buzzes away on the calf of a young woman clutching at the arm of the chair. Somewhere, deep within the shop, hyperactive rockabilly music twangs away while the singer tells a story about finding drugs on his farm. “So, Abbott.” The artist finally says. “You figure out what you’re getting today?”

“Not really Dan, I was thinking I’d jump in the saddle and we’d  just jam a little bit, you know?” He flips the poster display once more, not noticing the tattoo artist grit his teeth and shake his head at the girl in his chair.

Dan holds his gun up high to get a good echo so he can whisper to the blond staring up at him, “I hate it when they don’t know what they want before coming in. Just hate it!” He brings the gun back down to skin and shouts over the metallic rattle, “Right on, man. We’ll just cover what we can in four hours.”

“Yes.” Abbott declares before moving up to the counter and flipping open the other artist’s portfolio. “Where’s James today?”

“Oh, you know how it is man. The life a tattoo artist, we can schedule our own days off.”

“Cool. Cool. So, you got another appointment after me, man? Just in case we run long.”

Dan rolls his eyes, thankful his back is to the impatient customer. “Yeah, man. I got a butterfly after this and a faerie on a mushroom after that.” He puts his inking tool down and sprays a paper towel with a soapy solution and wipes the girl’s leg clean. “Alright, Bethany. All done.” Dan pats the skin dry and further treats the fresh meat, finally wrapping it in plastic film. He runs down the list of things she should and should not do to help the healing process and she hands him a handful of cash, which he discreetly pockets.

After the girl eventually leaves the shop and Dan’s had time to sterilize up his work area, he invites Abbott behind the counter and into the seat. “Man. He says as he sits, “I thought she’d never leave.” He wiggles into the seat and smiles, “Still warm.”

Dan does his best to avoid comments or expressions as he lays out a new set of ink cups and a new barrel. “So, where are we gonna start? What are we doing?”

Abbott rips off his shirt and starts tracing old tattoos. He excitedly describes a waterfall with some additions and awkward descriptions. Then rambles on about other things on other parts of his body. While he’s still describing his illustrated desires, Dan dips his gun and presses needles to skin. The band in the back fade out and ramp back up with another prerecorded track. A few minutes into the line work, Abbott relaxes his jaw enough to ask, “Who do ya got on the radio?”

“This?” He thumbs at the back door of his shop with his inking gun, “That’s the Reverend.”

“Reverend?”

“Horton Heat. One of the greatest psychobilly artists alive.” He smiles and runs the needles along the other man’s chest, leaving a trail of dark blue.

“I dig it, man. Not quite the country I’d normally listen to but it’s kinda raw. Sleazy.” He winces at the needles creeping up the skin under his nipple.

The session rolls through the first hour. Small talk is initiated on both sides of the gun and Dan frequently wipes the working area with a damn towel, sometimes to see the overall picture but usually, just to get some clarity on the canvas. The second hour moves a bit slower and within it, Dan switches the CDs in his stereo, provides Abbott with a couple breaks, and answers three phone calls.

By the time the third hour crawls up, a large amount of line work is crafted all across Abbott’s chest and belly in various shades of blue and gray. “God, I love tattoos.” Abbott confesses through clamped teeth while Dan begins to lay ground for the massive amounts of coloring to be done. “I hope you don’t mind but I have a friend bringing me some vodka. You know, to help dull the pain.”

Dan’s head rolls and his exasperation hisses from his mouth, “Come on Abbott. You know I don’t allow that shit in my shop.” Just as he finishes his statement, the metal bell above the front door dings and a sweaty ball of meat lumbers into the shop.

“Abbott!” The mahogany skinned man bellows. “I got yer fix my man, and the booze.”

Abbott nods and waves, as though his thick friend wouldn’t see him otherwise. “Right on dude. Check out this sick shit Dan’s slappin’ on me.”

The media circus begins. “Dan quietly gets back to work, humming through swirling pools and waves. After a moment of bantering from the macho machines, Dan looks up from his work, takes his foot off the pedal, and inquires, “What did he mean by that?”

“What?” Abbott looks at his artist. “Don’t you know nothin’ about trucks?”

“No, not that part.” Dan waits a moment while Abbott takes a swig of the clear depressant. He watches Abbott wipe his chin and clarifies, “He said he’s got your fix…and your booze.”

“Oh that.” Abbott drains more fluid from the bottle. “No worries dude.”

Dan sneaks a glance at the chunk of humanity flipping through his portfolio and gets back to work, wiping ink and blood from the man’s bare chest. The third hour squeezes slowly through the clock and through it, Dan feels pinned to a slab of cork board while these two friends yammer about trucks and having sex with each other’s mother. By the end of the third hour and the first bottle, Abbott’s pain threshold wavers, sending slips of profanity at his artist. The fourth hour rests more heavily on Dan’s frontal lobe as the alcohol has completely diminished Abbott’s sense of civility.

“Alright, man.” Dan stands, setting the gun on his toolbox. “I think we’re done for the day.”

“No we ain’t.” Abbott contests. He looks down at his raw belly and declares, “You don’t have it all colored in. We might as well finish.”

“I’d love to bud.” Dan lies, “But I have another appointment in a few minutes and I need to get ready for that. Besides, I think your skin has taken enough damage for the day.”

Abbott’s friend cracks open another bottle and wraps his molesting lips around it. The bell dings and a young girl walks in, chirping to the artist. “Hi Dan!”

“Hey Patricia, I’ll be right with you, let me just finish up with my buddy Abbott, here.”

The friend hands Abbott a brown paper sack and waddles past the girl and rests against the frame of the shop’s entrance. Abbott slaps his bleeding chest and nods at Dan, “Come on, I’ve been waiting for a long time for this so let’s get it done.”

Dan points at Patricia and apologizes, “Abbott, buddy. I’m sorry dude but my next appointment is here. I gotta get her started.”

Abbott responds to Dan’s statement by raising the bag at the girl. A flash of light and thunder clap shreds the bag, sending Dan into the air and dropping the girl to the ground with a spongy pinkish gray matter spilling out the top of her opened skull. “Looks like your schedule just opened up, Now get to work before you join her.”

The artist freezes, staring at the girl that was going to get her first tattoo today, the incredibly unique girl with a fascination with butterflies. Unique just like every other naïve, young girl that walked into his shop over the years. “Dan.” Abbott barks. “Sit yer ass down and let’s get ‘er done.”

The shop owner complies. He reaches for his gun, quivering in fear and dipping the tip of the barrel into a burnt orange. He taps on the foot pedal and the gun comes to life in his hands but the reverberation startles the artist and he drops the tool into his lap, marking a dot through his jeans and forever into his leg. “Shit. Shit. Sorry.” He scrambles for the inking machine.

“You better steady yer hand, dude. I don’t want no squiggly lines.” Abbott eases back into the barber chair and crosses his legs, careful not to drop the barrel of his pistol from his target. Dan gets back to work, his machine humming away against the human canvas, continuously mingling paint and plasma. The seven stinging needles cross raw skin under the man’s tit, scraping angrily against nerves, causing Abbott to holler and rub his trigger hand against his temple. “Mother fucker!”

Dan shrugs fearfully, “Sorry man, I can stop.”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Abbott shoves the pistol’s business end against Dan’s thin head, biting his temple. The artist pulls away from the barrel and raises his free hand. His foot squishes the pedal, kick starting the inking tool. The buzz of the little gun relaxes the intensity of the bigger gun and the bleeding mass of a man eases up on the trigger. “Now, put a bad ass tree right there with a monster or some shit coming out from behind it.” His finger slides through the stream of multicolored fluid along his belly.

“I gotta finish coloring…” The pistol returns, thumping against the ridge of Dan’s temple.

“What you gotta do is put a fucking tree right there!” He illustrates his point by jabbing his stomach with the pistol. “Earl! You got that other bottle dude? I’m bone dry over here!”

The slob at the door speaks through a belch, “No way bud, I just killed it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah dude.”

Abbott mutters a string of swear words before braying at his buddy, “Well, don’t just stand there wasting space, go get some more!”The slimy man across the shop flies some colorful hand gestures and walks out the door, threatening to return while the tattoo artist exchanges barrels on his gun.

Dan slaves on, burning through clear skin, scarring it with multiple hues. Each dragging line brings out some sort of agitation from the man in the seat. Still, Dan continues, climbing up the chest with gnarled branches of black paint. Through the diligence, his living panorama barks out, ‘not so hard’, ‘quit going over the same spot’, and other such garbage. Each time the complaints fall from his drunken face, the death dealing gun waves closer to Dan’s sweating forehead.

Hour five drills into Dan’s head, next to the growing number of pink circles from the tip of Abbott’s gun and as the time wears on his brain, the vibrations from the tattoo machine wear on his knuckles. Abbott has slowed a bit, partially from the rushing effects of the alcohol and partially from the excessive loss of blood. His anger, while still present, rolls from his mouth like water from a leaking hose, “Hey fucker…” He slurs, “When are you gonna wipe the ink with that shit in the bottle?”

Dan pauses a moment, deliberating on his answer. “Well, Abbott. You’ve gotten so much done now that I can’t really wipe with the soap without contaminating your blood stream.” He turns a knob on his gun and taps the pedal. The adjustment gets the set of needles roaring and he presses down on the blurry man.

“Fucking wipe it, dude.”

“I can’t.”

The pistol fires. The kick throws Abbott’s hand and shoves Dan’s leg into spasms. Blood pours from Dan’s leg as naturally as the scream does from his mouth and Abbott lies in the chair, smiling with satisfaction at his own gun work. “Oh Jesus!” Dan drops his tattoo gun and clamps his leg, shoving his thumbs into each side of the hole to stop the flow.

“Better wrap it up and get to work bud, or the next one’s going through your eye.” Abbott watches as his words collide against Dan’s consciousness and the twiggy artist begins shoving wads of paper towel into the perforation in his jeans. When the shop owner gets back to work, Abbott nods his head and grits his teeth at the familiar burn of the needles. A few brushes of the gun and Abbott’s lust drools out of his face, “You ever hit that?” He nods to Patricia.

“What?”

“That chick. You ever nail these bitches that come in to get tramp stamps and shit?”

“What? No!” He spits his disgust.

“I would.” Abbott licks his cracked lips, “Hell, I’d nail that piece right now, missing head and all.”

Dan struggles to focus on his work while fighting a well of nausea and tears. His working hand no longer follows the picture he’s spent hours etching onto Abbott and the needles frequently dip into mushy shreds of flesh, kicking up bits of living tissue. His body of work tries drinking from the empty bottle, then scratches at his temple with the end of the pistol and mumbles something about the pain before his eyes roll back into his head.

Dan drags his needle again and again in one small patch of purple flesh. He gets no response from Abbott and stands to run but his quivering leg gives way underneath him, pushing him back onto his small stool. The lack of lacerations brings Abbott wide eyed into the realm of awareness and he swings the gun onto his target, jerking on the trigger and launching another slug through the tattooist. “Finish!” He yells and lies back, muttering, “Love…tattoos.”

Dan grips the burning hole in his stomach and sputters pink froth. “Fuck.” He wheezes, grabbing his tattoo gun with his empty hand. He leans heavily on the pedal and collapses onto Abbott, his gun vibrating into the man’s neck, drilling open his vodka laced throat. Both men expel a lungful of life and sleep in Technicolor.

Luxuria, Chapter 1

Black emptiness fades to searing white and Harry can’t seem to get his fat tongue to dislodge from the roof of his mouth. As the spike burns through the back of his head, he can’t help but to damn his best friend Chance for another insane night of drinking the night before, though he knows he only has himself to blame.

Harry squeezes his stinging eyelids shut, hoping to evacuate the waste in his face and follows it up with a slow shoving pair of palms. His hands smear the gunk from his eyes and the straggling fingers clutch Harry’s three day beard like they’re falling over a cliff. Then the realization hits the man and the pain is just as sharp as whatever is burning the back of his head. He hasn’t seen Chance in weeks.

Reality’s slap to the face clears Harry’s vision, along with one more rub from his fingers. This helps the white fog to dissipate which reveals the mortifying clarity of the damaged man’s world, a claustrophobic world pressing on him from five sides with beige plastic walls. The light showing him his world comes from circles perforating two sides and from the sixth wall which is a heavy duty wire grid, a cage door.

The weight of reality lands on Harry solidly, crushing his spirit as he comes to the understanding that he’s  locked inside an animal kennel and his head aches from resting crookedly against a clumsy seam. “What the hell?” His raspy voice strains against pain in his throat and while one hand grabs at the sore in his neck, the other weaves through the thin bars barricading his exit.

The other side of his gridded view reveals blistered walls and scarred hardwood floor washed in a blinding fluorescent light. “Hello?” His mouth presses against the small black bars but the room does not reply. Pressing at his throat to push the pain away, he tries again with more volume. “Anybody? Where am I?”

Where am I. These three words bounce from the yellow bubbled walls, daring him to answer his own question but the response he offers is one filled with panic and shaking. His desperate actions rock the kennel and rattle the door on plastic hinges. Harry’s rocking offers no satisfaction so his next attempt is to jam his fingers through the bar in hopes of reaching for the latch on the other side but his hands wedge in the opening, thwarting him yet again.

“Let me out!” He screams, rupturing the tender skin in his air passage and he squirms about inside the kennel. Resting his back against the rear of the plastic box, he throws his bare feet against the resilient bars, jostling the cage but giving no leeway.

With a defeated cough and bloodied spit, he slumps, releasing the air in his lungs and the hope from his heart. “What’s going on?” He whimpers. “Why is this happening?” 

Alternative Zombie Intro - Epic Win (unfinished rough draft)

                “Why did I even say yes to this?” Winston says to the table in front of him as he slumps down into the well-used chair. His right hand slaps down lazily onto the table top, causing a small rattle from the empty coffee can and the wobbly, hand-crafted, wooden sign which both rest on the uneven tabletop. He sighs heavily and looks around the common grounds of the college at the various people moving from one place to another, oblivious to each other as his hand picks and pulls at the name-filled paper in front of him.

                As the day meanders on, picking turns to penciling and Winston slowly, methodically tortures the paper on the table with inquisition precision and merciless persistence. He brushes a roll of raffle tickets away to dig in deeper to his torture as he administers the thumbscrews on the edge of the sheet. The little red tags of unwon prizes slides neglected to the cash box to pout unnoticed. Winston stretches and tears at the paper, grinding on it looking for any form of vocalization from the list of names but none comes.

                “Hey Win.” The melody floats through the air directly above Winston’s sandy blond faux hawk and beyond the realm of the cafeteria style table. The melody is repeated and finds the same lack of response. Again, the table claps, this time from a hand other than Winston’s, which causes his head to pop up like a startled meerkat.

                Standing before Winston on the opposite side of the table is a smaller woman with a very pleasing frame and yellow hair layering over her one-piece denim skirt-suit which clings tightly to her shape and accentuates her feminine curves. Winston’s startled face transitions to joy, “Hey Jennifer. What’s new?”

                “Just getting ready to go to class. What about you, what’s all of this?” She asks as she waves her hand like a game show hostess at the table and the various items scattered across it.

                “Oh. Well this is a fund raiser my business club is doing. Want to buy a ticket? They’re only a dollar.” He sets his hand on the reel of red tabs and smiles half-heartedly.

                “What do I win?”

                “Well, we aren’t really giving out prizes. The deal is you pick someone on this list,” he taps his pencil at the scarred paper, “and you buy tickets on them. The instructor with the most tickets bought on him or her has to kiss a pig on graduation day in front of everyone.”

                “Oh, how very interesting.” She feigns enthusiasm but her cynicism seeps through her glowing white teeth. “Have you been very successful today?”

                “No, it’s been pretty quite.” He points at the emptiness throughout the indoor courtyard. “No one wanted to show up to school today.”

“I am a little surprised to see you here today.” She motions around to the rest of the college.

                “Why.” Winston slides back into his chair, scratching at the edge of the tabletop.

                “Well with the bomb threat and all, I figured you might have stayed home.” She leans up against the table and Winston can’t help but notice how the table’s ledge presses against her hip flesh.

                “Oh that. That’s no big deal.” Winston flicks carelessly at the reel of tickets.

                “What do you mean, no big deal? Doesn’t this bomb threat cause you at least some concern? This is a big deal.” Jennifer tries hard to be genuine with her words but again, her biting condescension is more visible than she thinks it is. She is so confident in her intelligence that it doesn’t dawn on her that her belittlement is dead obvious.

                Winston sighs out his boredom with the conversation, “There is no bomb. It’s all just a hoax”

                “Oh?” She provides mock surprise. “How do you know this?”

                “Yeah.” Winston leans forward and props his forearms up on his knees, “Think about it for a minute. There are two reasons why this can’t be legitimate. First off; this threat was issued yesterday and the ‘terrorist’ said it would explode today. I sincerely doubt anyone in this town has the knowledge necessary to make a timer that will go off a day later.” Winston smiles and waves at the college president as the man in the suit walks toward the cafeteria. “Second, if this was legitimate, the ‘bomber’ would have a real reason for doing it and that reason would have been sent to the paper or TV station, not scrawled like a juvenile on a bathroom wall. I mean, if you were going to bomb something, wouldn’t you want people to know why they’re being punished?”

                Jennifer pushes off the table and resumes her power stance, “I guess that makes sense.”

                The ground shifts and chaos runs from the cafeteria in an earth shattering roar. The walls tremble at the sound, shaking off paint and mortar. School chairs and other normally stationary items escape from the sound in a flight and billows of dust, smoke, and debris chase after the errant items in a frenzied rage, spitting trash and cement in anger.

                Winston uprights himself in his seat, scooting his torso back onto the chair but cannot move. He rolls his head brokenly forward, stooping slightly before regaining equilibrium. The young student tries to stand but is stopped dead by the length of steel bar which has pierced his left knee and embedded into the concrete, putting him in his place like an insect on corkboard. Winston’s eyes focus for the first time since the explosion. They stare at the knee, trying to understand why it refuses to move and finally realizes the source of his immobility which causes a slight wave of nausea.

                Jennifer pulls her feet underneath her and stands on them a good four feet from where she was standing before the blast. She stabilizes herself by holding onto the floor with one hand and her curvy hip with the other before drawing herself up onto shaky knees and grabbing at nearby air to keep her upright. “Oh my god…” she stammers through a muzzle of disbelief as a cascade of ash and dirt pours from her straight blond hair.

                The fingers of his left hand gently investigate the spot where Win’s knee and the steel rod connect as he calls out to Jen, “Hey! Are you alright?” He tries pulling on the gigantic pin and when he does, his vision flees and beads of sweat form on his hairline.

                Jen orients herself and turns to let Win know she’s fine as she is blindsided by a blur of human mass. The force of this second battery throws the woman again and again she is tossed to the ground, this time, she is covered by a pair of ragged bodies. The mass of bodies slides to a halt next to part of the ceiling which has fallen and Jen finds herself pressed to the ground by the college president and a culinary student wearing a smoldering apron. The culinary student, lying on Jen’s legs and holding her right arm, pulls her hand to his torn face and drops his exposed jaw onto her fingers. She screeches in pain which causes the president to prop up on her shoulders and look down at her. He cocks his head to the side and allows a sound to fall from his bloodied mouth that sounds like a choking pig. His head twitches twice like a skipping record before he also descends upon the face of the screaming student, teeth exposed.

                “Oh shit!”  Win grabs the bar above his knee and jerks on it. Pain sails up his leg and into his stomach. The wave crashes in his belly and rolls to his throat, widening his eyes. The pain freezes his movement and Winston is paralyzed, eyes fixed on the two men attacking his classmate. The president pulls his perfectly styled head back from Jennifer’s face with all the force his strained and sliced neck muscles can muster. His mouth full of broken teeth drag Jen’s cheek like stretching bubble gum before the tension causes it to snap roughly mid way between faces, sending strings of skin slapping up at the president like spaghetti noodles and flecks of blood and fluid spurting into the air. This sight breaks the spell and Winston understands the need to move now! He jerks on the unmoving bar again which sends another wave up through his gut and into his throat, this time unstopped by his esophagus, the previous meal spills out from his face with sloppy splatters onto the table in front of him.

                The culinary student chewing through Jennifer’s hand raises his own into the air with his boney fingers pointed at her stomach. Without watching, he plunges his fleshless finger knives into her midsection, tearing through her tight denim outfit and her abdominal wall. He reaches elbow deep into the student and retracts with a handful of intestines. Sections of the meaty rope slips between the student’s jagged fingers and slap at the body below. The student rips at the new handful of organs with a clap of the teeth and gnashes at the rubbery meat. The sight forces another round of convulsion from Winston and the sound causes the feasting student to snap his head at Win and jolt forward. Win shakes the bar, fighting back the waves of pain, rocking the bar back and forth as the culinary student half crawl, half sprints at the pinned student. Knowing that his arm strength isn’t enough, Win begins kicking away from the bar with his trapped leg which begins pulling the impaled rod from the concrete. With a scream, he kicks away from the cannibal and the pole flips up. Winston tries to run from the crazed cook but his mangled knee doesn’t even try to support him and he slides away from the table as the other student leaps across it and crashes into the now vacant chair.

                Winston begins scrambling toward a set of nearby stairs while the sprinting student throws chair to the side and launches into another tackle. Knowing he can’t get away, Winston rolls onto his back and scoots backward to the stairs, keeping a frightened eye on the lunatic student as he jumps again. Winston grabs the rod and points the unoccupied end of it at the heart of the flying student. The pole punctures the landing person and protrudes from his back which stops his forward momentum. He shoots his bloodied hands at Winston and falls short of his target so he grabs the post and pulls his body closer to his prey.

                With the additional weight, Winston quits trying to pull the bar out of his leg and instead butts it up against the bottom stair and scoots closer to the stairs. This pushes the bar out of the wounded student’s knee along with meat and chips of bone. Once the pole gets too far through Winston’s knee to hold the weight of the advancing lunatic, it begins swaying off to the left and Win pushes it in encouragement before realizing that doing this tears at the remaining flesh connections between his body and his lower leg. With sound of splitting rope, the bar severs most of the ties keeping Win’s foot and the culinary student sprawls to the side clumsily sprawling backward. Winston bellows in agony.

                The college president’s head flips up, covered in crimson. He draws to attention like a meerkat hearing danger. His throat clicks a few times and his head cocks twice rapidly before tasting the air with his tongue. He draws in scent with fluttering eyelids and a slow gasp of wind before his head falls sideways, eyes landing directly on Winston’s soul. Without the assistance of his hands, the president rises from the corpse of the girl, knees buckled together and head not changing axis.      

                Winston is stricken with another wave of nausea and panic which is compounded by watching Jennifer’s body rise to a sitting position and then stand as well, faceless and with innards pouring from the hole in her midsection and dangling at the end of chords of tendon and artery from deep within her torso. He wheels about and scrambles up the stairs, dragging his nearly severed leg behind, not realizing how much it resembles a fish out of water flopping up each stair and spinning in the air or tumbling around itself.

                The college president and his recently undeceased classmate begin stalking the wounded student. As they close in on the stairs, the reset of the college erupts in a new chaos, bringing panicked students and staff out of the woodwork screaming for ambulances or nine one one. The door bursts open behind the college president and his hefty secretary charges out of the door straight to her boss with a box of Kleenexes in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. No sooner does the woman get her stubby fingers to the president’s mangled face is she beset upon by a pair of hungry dead and shortly joined by the third famished attacker.



Chapter 0: Z

                 "...and you are listening to KISS 101, Walla Walla's rock and roll station on top of the Marcus Whitman Hotel in downtown Walla Walla! You just heard Guns N' Roses' Paradise City, yet another wild hit from this up and coming band’s debut album and now we follow it up with rock n' roll newcomers, Skid Row with what's going to be a smash hit, Youth Gone Wild which is exactly what you're gonna do when you hear this adrenalin fueled song!" The DJ's voice is abruptly cut off with a rotation and a click.
                "Dammit Jeff, that sorta music is what makes you dumb enough to be stuck on transport duty." The weed of a correctional officer glares down from the aisle of the bus to the young driver.
                "Come on Skip, you know I had an accident on the tower!" The frustrated driver darts his eyes up from the traffic on Poplar street to the awkwardly thick face on the lanky, thin haired guard leaning against the prisoner grate. He hits the blinker and turns into the St. Mary's hospital's back parking lot.
                "Jeff, you fell down the tower ladder because you were looking at the administration girls with your binoculars and weren't watching where you were going!" The thin guard's awkward belly jiggles as he laughs. His words bring a buzz of discussion to the dozen blue jump-suited inmates on the other side of the cage followed by various points of laughter throughout the dingy, white, criminal transport bus.
                "Shut up!" The driver shoots death sentences at the mirror and over his shoulder then back again to the unloading zone leading to the automatic doors of the medical center. The transport screeches and hisses to a stop, shotguns are equipped, and the line of shackled inmates is stretched and dragged through the back entrance of the hospital and directed by gunpoint to the cancer wing where they are processed and cuffed to inspection tables individually, getting prepared for examinations and physicals, pads and monitors, samples and injections.
                Hours pass while correctional officers Skip and Jeff absently surf through magazine after magazine only breaking the silence and monotony when they share a scantily clad advertisement for juvenile amusement or groan at the clock's honest display of the time.
                The waiting of the correctional officers finally pays off and their prisoners are returned to them, albeit more hollow and pale. Jeff turns from his magazine to the inmates and then to Skip, "Well, looks like we got our kids back."
                The officers stand and return to their jobs, herding the husks that were once prisoners back to the transport and then to the prison on the hill. The bus pulls through the penitentiary gate and out of the haunting silence as the lengthy cage guard muses, “Unloading is always more relaxed than the loading.” As he unlocks the cage door and prepares the gravely silent inmates for relocation. The prisoners move slowly but steadily from the bus to the human corrals, shambling to their pens by action more than thought.
                Hours pass, Jeff and Skip clock out and go home. The dinner hour comes and goes. Even the sun drops below the western hills, painting the wheat fields before it lowers into slumber. Before the call for lights out is sounded through the penitentiary, each of the twelve inmates that returned from the hospital transition from sallow to visceral, turning on their cell mates and pushing violence onto the contained prisoners. Whether it is the punch in the face or a savage bite, the inmates burst into riotous discord. The screams signal to the guards that all is not well within the cell block and the officers signal control to call in the Emergency Response Team, the prison's equivalent to police SWAT. By the time the first inmate is forcibly passed over the top rail and hits the ground three stories below, the ERT has entered the cell block and begun to contain the rampaging inmates long enough to bring the Specialized Emergency Response Team in with their rifles. The increased stress that this government militia brings provides just the final incentive to encourage the already panicked and enraged inmates to lunge forward as one wave of hatred crashing down on the shield bearing guards. This sudden burst of violence begets a reactionary explosion of violence with the report of gunfire. The altercation lasts less than five minutes and results in dozens of lifeless prisoners and twice the amount in spent rifle shells.
                The extra time the tax payers unwittingly put money toward is in the cleanup of the remains. In time, the prisoners with family are dealt with in a manner that accommodates the next of kin while the inmates that have no legacy are wrapped like deli meat and buried in the back property, not quite affectionately known as nine wing, like a family pet with no more than a brick and a government number. In a month's time, all is forgotten and new prisoners are quickly shipped into the void left by the bloody riot.