self-published
because it amuses me to do so....
...as part of our java programming project -- the zombie puzzle game NeverGreen -- we emphasized to our professor that our game was not just running around shooting things. it was story-driven. he kinda siezed on that and asked for a copy of our story. guess who got stuck with that?
i ended up writing a very brief (4pp) story that actually quite amused me. i was reading a ton of douglas adams at that moment and you'll see his fingerprints all over. anyway, i find it still amuses me, so i share it.
NeverGreen
By
Christopher Hord
There were those, of course, who put forward the idea that the zombies were simply an under-represented subculture, and that we should immediately "dialog" with them. Predictably, they were eaten first, which simplified the debate.
This is no idle train of thought for you because the zombies are here now and they look hungry and all you know -- for a fact -- is that they're unlikely to want to talk this out.
So you ran, then, heart pounding, legs and arms pumping until you reached the cover of the Lecture Halls. It was easier than you thought. This was going to be a walk in the park. A park full of zombies!
You skulk to the corner of the building. That, at least, is cool. You've never gotten the chance to skulk before and college is all about embracing new experiences, right?
The zombies are looking the other way. You could casually saunter right up to the Library doors. You decide to embrace this new experience too. It seems so much safer than your ragged dash from the Labs.
Really, the zombies are quite stupid, you reflect confidently. Sure, they were people who came back from the dead, but their brains had starved from lack of oxygen. They were dumber than a bag of hair. So, really, everything should be fine, so long as you play it cool. real cool.
When you stumble over the drums, every zombie begins to laboriously turn in your direction. You feel distinctly less confident now. The drums lay in shadow, unnoticeable, up until now. Students had probably been playing in a drum circle when that chlorine tanker spilled off the Burlington Santa Fe tracks, permanently harshing their mellow....
...With no weapon at hand, you grab the nearest item at hand, a maraca. Up until now, you had never figured maraca was an actual word. Really, when is there just one maraca? People play maracas, plural. But even one maraca has a handle and the gourd is filled with beans and it makes a cheerful, percussive noise as you weigh the balance in your palm and hurl it towards a zombie, more for lack of anything better to do than out of conviction of the strength of the weapon.
But it seems that not even the addition of a handle can make a gourd filled with beans into an effective projectile. The maraca skews wide and flies harmlessly past the zombie's head. You begin to feel like this wide-open plaza could quickly turn into a "dead-end" street for you.
However, as the maraca falls harmlessly in the midst of the approaching zombies, it strikes with a racket and clatter and the zombies all turn to locate the source of the noise. one zombie, wearing a tie-dye t-shirt picks up the instrument and begins to arrhythmically shake it. The others gather around thier comrade and it occurs to you--they may be dead, but they're still 'Greeners! You begin to hurl bongoes, tamborines and kalimbas. Soon, several of the zombies form an impromptu drum circle, while others begin to twirl and sway in the center like a Grateful Dead concert taken to some ghastly extreme.
"Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a Deadhead!"
"Sorry, son, you can't do both...."
You stifle your hysterical giggles. You are so close to the Library now. This is no time to lose your head--or any other body parts....
...You are an intern for Professor Rex Stallion, the nation's leading geneticist-foklorist-paranormal researcher. To be fair, he is probably the nation's only geneticist-foklorist-paranormal researcher, but with his good looks, athletic build and gentlemanly bearing, it seems churlish to mention it.
It was Stallion who made the connection between the ancient ceremonial spear among the college's artifacts, stories of ancient Native American legends and the current crises. Stallion theorized that this was not the first time that the dead had risen to walk the Puget Sound and that local tribes had found some method of laying them to rest. In retrospect, the translation of the spear's name -- "Ol' Zombie-Killer" -- should have rung some bells sooner, but better late than never, you figure.
That was when the bureaucracy snapped into action, gathering data for Stallion's tests. Even now, National Guard units were rounding up zombies for tests. Other scientists were out in the field to take samples and make observations. And you?
"Could you just pop over to the library and bring back that spear for me," Stallion had enquired. You knew it wasn't really a question. What Professor Stallion wanted, Professor Stallion got!
...While the zombies played drums -- and expressed their appreciation for global indigenous cultures -- it was easy to walk to the Library doors. Unfortunately, they were locked.
What's this? There's a note taped to the door. You open it. The note reads, "It stands on one leg with its heart in its head." What the hell?
Suddenly, you're exhausted. You sit on the ground while a plaza full of zombies pound on percussion. You reflect that drum circles are like sneezes -- you can feel one forming, but there's no way to really stop it -- and you wonder who would write a nonsensical note like that. Maybe the librarians should stop sneaking into the ecological gardens to sample the mushrooms....
The gardens!
Right there -- between the Lecture Hall and the Library stood a one of the environmentally-friendly gardens that dot the campus. In the garden, grew cabbages.
The cabbage leaves are called the "head." The center of the clump of leaves is the "heart." If you looked at the stalk as a single leg...?
There, in the first plant you examine, is the key. You unlock the library and walk in, footsteps echoing. The spear should be in a glass display case near the books on paranormal. Past the obscure tomes of forbidden lore, like The Bad-Tempered Werewolf by Claudia Armoff and Vampire Lore by Drew Blood, lay the display -- empty!
There was another note. With a sense of dread, you open it to read a note from Paige Turner, the Head Librarian. It says, "Ceremonial Spear on loan to Art Department."
It's going to be a long night....
[EDITED TO ADD]: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
...as part of our java programming project -- the zombie puzzle game NeverGreen -- we emphasized to our professor that our game was not just running around shooting things. it was story-driven. he kinda siezed on that and asked for a copy of our story. guess who got stuck with that?
i ended up writing a very brief (4pp) story that actually quite amused me. i was reading a ton of douglas adams at that moment and you'll see his fingerprints all over. anyway, i find it still amuses me, so i share it.
NeverGreen
By
Christopher Hord
There were those, of course, who put forward the idea that the zombies were simply an under-represented subculture, and that we should immediately "dialog" with them. Predictably, they were eaten first, which simplified the debate.
This is no idle train of thought for you because the zombies are here now and they look hungry and all you know -- for a fact -- is that they're unlikely to want to talk this out.
So you ran, then, heart pounding, legs and arms pumping until you reached the cover of the Lecture Halls. It was easier than you thought. This was going to be a walk in the park. A park full of zombies!
You skulk to the corner of the building. That, at least, is cool. You've never gotten the chance to skulk before and college is all about embracing new experiences, right?
The zombies are looking the other way. You could casually saunter right up to the Library doors. You decide to embrace this new experience too. It seems so much safer than your ragged dash from the Labs.
Really, the zombies are quite stupid, you reflect confidently. Sure, they were people who came back from the dead, but their brains had starved from lack of oxygen. They were dumber than a bag of hair. So, really, everything should be fine, so long as you play it cool. real cool.
When you stumble over the drums, every zombie begins to laboriously turn in your direction. You feel distinctly less confident now. The drums lay in shadow, unnoticeable, up until now. Students had probably been playing in a drum circle when that chlorine tanker spilled off the Burlington Santa Fe tracks, permanently harshing their mellow....
...With no weapon at hand, you grab the nearest item at hand, a maraca. Up until now, you had never figured maraca was an actual word. Really, when is there just one maraca? People play maracas, plural. But even one maraca has a handle and the gourd is filled with beans and it makes a cheerful, percussive noise as you weigh the balance in your palm and hurl it towards a zombie, more for lack of anything better to do than out of conviction of the strength of the weapon.
But it seems that not even the addition of a handle can make a gourd filled with beans into an effective projectile. The maraca skews wide and flies harmlessly past the zombie's head. You begin to feel like this wide-open plaza could quickly turn into a "dead-end" street for you.
However, as the maraca falls harmlessly in the midst of the approaching zombies, it strikes with a racket and clatter and the zombies all turn to locate the source of the noise. one zombie, wearing a tie-dye t-shirt picks up the instrument and begins to arrhythmically shake it. The others gather around thier comrade and it occurs to you--they may be dead, but they're still 'Greeners! You begin to hurl bongoes, tamborines and kalimbas. Soon, several of the zombies form an impromptu drum circle, while others begin to twirl and sway in the center like a Grateful Dead concert taken to some ghastly extreme.
"Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a Deadhead!"
"Sorry, son, you can't do both...."
You stifle your hysterical giggles. You are so close to the Library now. This is no time to lose your head--or any other body parts....
...You are an intern for Professor Rex Stallion, the nation's leading geneticist-foklorist-paranormal researcher. To be fair, he is probably the nation's only geneticist-foklorist-paranormal researcher, but with his good looks, athletic build and gentlemanly bearing, it seems churlish to mention it.
It was Stallion who made the connection between the ancient ceremonial spear among the college's artifacts, stories of ancient Native American legends and the current crises. Stallion theorized that this was not the first time that the dead had risen to walk the Puget Sound and that local tribes had found some method of laying them to rest. In retrospect, the translation of the spear's name -- "Ol' Zombie-Killer" -- should have rung some bells sooner, but better late than never, you figure.
That was when the bureaucracy snapped into action, gathering data for Stallion's tests. Even now, National Guard units were rounding up zombies for tests. Other scientists were out in the field to take samples and make observations. And you?
"Could you just pop over to the library and bring back that spear for me," Stallion had enquired. You knew it wasn't really a question. What Professor Stallion wanted, Professor Stallion got!
...While the zombies played drums -- and expressed their appreciation for global indigenous cultures -- it was easy to walk to the Library doors. Unfortunately, they were locked.
What's this? There's a note taped to the door. You open it. The note reads, "It stands on one leg with its heart in its head." What the hell?
Suddenly, you're exhausted. You sit on the ground while a plaza full of zombies pound on percussion. You reflect that drum circles are like sneezes -- you can feel one forming, but there's no way to really stop it -- and you wonder who would write a nonsensical note like that. Maybe the librarians should stop sneaking into the ecological gardens to sample the mushrooms....
The gardens!
Right there -- between the Lecture Hall and the Library stood a one of the environmentally-friendly gardens that dot the campus. In the garden, grew cabbages.
The cabbage leaves are called the "head." The center of the clump of leaves is the "heart." If you looked at the stalk as a single leg...?
There, in the first plant you examine, is the key. You unlock the library and walk in, footsteps echoing. The spear should be in a glass display case near the books on paranormal. Past the obscure tomes of forbidden lore, like The Bad-Tempered Werewolf by Claudia Armoff and Vampire Lore by Drew Blood, lay the display -- empty!
There was another note. With a sense of dread, you open it to read a note from Paige Turner, the Head Librarian. It says, "Ceremonial Spear on loan to Art Department."
It's going to be a long night....
[EDITED TO ADD]: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.