When The World Ends Rest In Peace
TITLE: When The World Ends Rest In Peace
AUTHOR: e313
SPOILER: Mild ones. Maybe. Not really.
GENRE: Gen. Post apocalyptic
CHARACTERS: Ash, Jo.
SUMMARY: Hey, what’s your point? Do I call you on that hair? Post apocalyptic.
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated.
DISCLAIMER: They don’t belong to me but their owners.
NOTE: Round two of e313 and ultraviolet9a apocalypse fics challenge thingy. For her fic, click. (Round one here)
“Get away from me!”
“Calm down.”
“You’re dead!”
“Duh!”
“You’re not real!”
“Hey, what’s your point? Do I call you on that hair?”
“If I upset your rest cuz I’m crashing here, I’m leaving,” a hurried scuffle of feet , “look,” a mad dash to grab a satchel, “am gone.”
“Great! Will you calm down already, you you you…argh!”
Jo stands in front of the door and tries on her most menacing stare, while all she wants to do is scream in frustration and kick something, preferably the fool in front of her on the shin, but that wouldn’t do much good right now with her new tendency to pass through most solid objects, flesh included, so she takes a deep breath and struggles to calm down.
“Sit. Down.”
“Hey, Jo, what you mean ‘bout my hair…”
Her most intimidating glare is obviously going to waste. Then again, Ash has stopped moving. That’s something.
Or not.
His hands crossed, huffing, indignant. He starts pacing again, this time left to right, right to left, seemingly mumbling to himself half unintelligibly about a dude’s hair…hairy insults… what’d the dead know of styling anyway…as if when alive…
It is possible that the end of the world has addled his brain. Jo takes a minute to look at him. Really look at him. Life’s hard on the living. His clothes are scruffy, look like torn at places, dirty, holes, hanging around a spare frame…huh. Not much of a change then. Warms a ghost’s heart. She smiles half indulgently, half truly happy and Ash stops and grins back, then scolds again.
“You’re dead,” a simple statement devoid of any traces of panic now. Maybe a bit accusatory in a way Jo doesn’t quite catch.
“I know.” She shrugs it of as a fact of little importance, her eyes smiling too, which is probably what convinces her old friend that there is not going to be an attack. Odd as traditional hauntings go.
There have been people breaking in and out of the bar, seeking refuge for a night or two and then moving. It’s mostly empty of anything useful. A middle aged man, with the expensive tie of a businessman torn and his suit unrecognizable under mud and slime, took the last bag of crackers a few weeks back. She shows Ash some tins that escaped notice and are good to go till 3010 or something. They have a quiet meal, consisting mostly of Ash munching and giving her the news as it is, and Jo listening to a friendly voice, twirling her favourite knife in her fingers, even giggling at some points, which she didn’t do in life, but death is freeing that way.
It’s nice.
“So, emmm, what are you doing? Here.” Ash seems more curious than cagey rolling his eyes to glance at bare walls and upturned stools.
“Don’t know really,” an elegant shrug and the corner of her lip dipped down, eloquently expressing her frustration more than mere words could ever do. Her teeth nudge the bottom lip in concentration and she manages to throw the knife on the target, imbedding shallowly, tittering and falling to the wooden floor with a dull clang muted by dust on dead autumn leaves the wind keeps blowing in over older dust and more dust.
“Is Ellen here?”
“Noooo. Don’t tell her! Don’t you dare tell her!”
“Okay, okay.”
“I can’t move on.”
There is an awkward pause while Ash processes her words and silently waits, and Jo stares in his eyes gauging reactions.
“I don’t know how I died.” Her stare turns into a question at the end of the little phrase.
“Mmm, we only found your body. Or cops did. The morgue said the cause of death was a bullet to the heart, clear shot, probably from a distance...”
Jo knows that much. She was hunting in a medium to large town; a seashore resort, beautiful young women found dead with their hearts missing. It could have been a serial killer. It might have been something else. She had only been there for a day or so asking around, fishing for the files on those girls. The morgue night guard was a Goth freak and had agreed to let her in that night on her second smile and artfully excited squeal. She was walking by the pier around 11 pm when she felt a sharp ache. Her hands shot automatically up to clutch at an already blood drenched shirt and she collapsed on the spot without even realizing what had happened. That’s how she pictures it in her mind’s eye. Probably her hands never had a chance to move. The memory of sticky blood on her fingers is so clear she suspects it’s not a real memory at all. Too fast. Everything happened too fast.
Next thing she knew, she was in the roadhouse. It was closed down, the wing howling outside, and, despite the only merest signs of abandonment and a decisive lack of spider webs or gaping windows, it still reminded her of the old black and white horror films she used to watch with mom and laugh, while waiting for dad to come back from a hunt. She hadn’t watched one in ages. Never after that day he didn’t come back. Now her world is black and white, all colours a variation of gray. Ash still eating opposite her has gray hair and gray clothes and gray skin in her ‘eyes’ and she tries to remember what colour things and people used to be.
Her body had been sent back home and a service was held. Because she was a hunter she was cremated.
It was shortly after that that the world ended. Not that it had anything to do with her murder. Nothing but one of these unfortunate coincidences. The world did not end in fire or ice or a sigh but in a howl, the Gates of Hell wide open, and every demon out for a run in the bestest playground ever. Terror, confusion, war. People fought back with crosses, with old fairytales and myths, superstitions, prayer, magic, anything at hand and everything. The police had other things to do, much more pressing than solving one single murder of one single girl that held no significance in a larger picture that bled with claws and laughed between fangs of various sizes and designs.
Ellen left the roadhouse for Jim’s church where another hunter priest was organizing resistance, furious and with nothing to lose anymore, her late husband’s weapons the only thing she took with to call home.
In the abandoned bar, Jo flickered into a new existence and blinked and was confused, but she’d been a hunter and that meant she at least knew what the hell a ghost was, so there was no despair and no crying. Only waiting for an opportunity.
“I need you to help me solve my case, Ash.”
Ash raises his eyes to stare through overgrown bangs of hair.
“I need to track down my killer.”
“Alright.”
In the morning, they head out together.
The End.
AUTHOR: e313
SPOILER: Mild ones. Maybe. Not really.
GENRE: Gen. Post apocalyptic
CHARACTERS: Ash, Jo.
SUMMARY: Hey, what’s your point? Do I call you on that hair? Post apocalyptic.
RATING: PG-13
FEEDBACK: Always appreciated.
DISCLAIMER: They don’t belong to me but their owners.
NOTE: Round two of e313 and ultraviolet9a apocalypse fics challenge thingy. For her fic, click. (Round one here)
“Get away from me!”
“Calm down.”
“You’re dead!”
“Duh!”
“You’re not real!”
“Hey, what’s your point? Do I call you on that hair?”
“If I upset your rest cuz I’m crashing here, I’m leaving,” a hurried scuffle of feet , “look,” a mad dash to grab a satchel, “am gone.”
“Great! Will you calm down already, you you you…argh!”
Jo stands in front of the door and tries on her most menacing stare, while all she wants to do is scream in frustration and kick something, preferably the fool in front of her on the shin, but that wouldn’t do much good right now with her new tendency to pass through most solid objects, flesh included, so she takes a deep breath and struggles to calm down.
“Sit. Down.”
“Hey, Jo, what you mean ‘bout my hair…”
Her most intimidating glare is obviously going to waste. Then again, Ash has stopped moving. That’s something.
Or not.
His hands crossed, huffing, indignant. He starts pacing again, this time left to right, right to left, seemingly mumbling to himself half unintelligibly about a dude’s hair…hairy insults… what’d the dead know of styling anyway…as if when alive…
It is possible that the end of the world has addled his brain. Jo takes a minute to look at him. Really look at him. Life’s hard on the living. His clothes are scruffy, look like torn at places, dirty, holes, hanging around a spare frame…huh. Not much of a change then. Warms a ghost’s heart. She smiles half indulgently, half truly happy and Ash stops and grins back, then scolds again.
“You’re dead,” a simple statement devoid of any traces of panic now. Maybe a bit accusatory in a way Jo doesn’t quite catch.
“I know.” She shrugs it of as a fact of little importance, her eyes smiling too, which is probably what convinces her old friend that there is not going to be an attack. Odd as traditional hauntings go.
There have been people breaking in and out of the bar, seeking refuge for a night or two and then moving. It’s mostly empty of anything useful. A middle aged man, with the expensive tie of a businessman torn and his suit unrecognizable under mud and slime, took the last bag of crackers a few weeks back. She shows Ash some tins that escaped notice and are good to go till 3010 or something. They have a quiet meal, consisting mostly of Ash munching and giving her the news as it is, and Jo listening to a friendly voice, twirling her favourite knife in her fingers, even giggling at some points, which she didn’t do in life, but death is freeing that way.
It’s nice.
“So, emmm, what are you doing? Here.” Ash seems more curious than cagey rolling his eyes to glance at bare walls and upturned stools.
“Don’t know really,” an elegant shrug and the corner of her lip dipped down, eloquently expressing her frustration more than mere words could ever do. Her teeth nudge the bottom lip in concentration and she manages to throw the knife on the target, imbedding shallowly, tittering and falling to the wooden floor with a dull clang muted by dust on dead autumn leaves the wind keeps blowing in over older dust and more dust.
“Is Ellen here?”
“Noooo. Don’t tell her! Don’t you dare tell her!”
“Okay, okay.”
“I can’t move on.”
There is an awkward pause while Ash processes her words and silently waits, and Jo stares in his eyes gauging reactions.
“I don’t know how I died.” Her stare turns into a question at the end of the little phrase.
“Mmm, we only found your body. Or cops did. The morgue said the cause of death was a bullet to the heart, clear shot, probably from a distance...”
Jo knows that much. She was hunting in a medium to large town; a seashore resort, beautiful young women found dead with their hearts missing. It could have been a serial killer. It might have been something else. She had only been there for a day or so asking around, fishing for the files on those girls. The morgue night guard was a Goth freak and had agreed to let her in that night on her second smile and artfully excited squeal. She was walking by the pier around 11 pm when she felt a sharp ache. Her hands shot automatically up to clutch at an already blood drenched shirt and she collapsed on the spot without even realizing what had happened. That’s how she pictures it in her mind’s eye. Probably her hands never had a chance to move. The memory of sticky blood on her fingers is so clear she suspects it’s not a real memory at all. Too fast. Everything happened too fast.
Next thing she knew, she was in the roadhouse. It was closed down, the wing howling outside, and, despite the only merest signs of abandonment and a decisive lack of spider webs or gaping windows, it still reminded her of the old black and white horror films she used to watch with mom and laugh, while waiting for dad to come back from a hunt. She hadn’t watched one in ages. Never after that day he didn’t come back. Now her world is black and white, all colours a variation of gray. Ash still eating opposite her has gray hair and gray clothes and gray skin in her ‘eyes’ and she tries to remember what colour things and people used to be.
Her body had been sent back home and a service was held. Because she was a hunter she was cremated.
It was shortly after that that the world ended. Not that it had anything to do with her murder. Nothing but one of these unfortunate coincidences. The world did not end in fire or ice or a sigh but in a howl, the Gates of Hell wide open, and every demon out for a run in the bestest playground ever. Terror, confusion, war. People fought back with crosses, with old fairytales and myths, superstitions, prayer, magic, anything at hand and everything. The police had other things to do, much more pressing than solving one single murder of one single girl that held no significance in a larger picture that bled with claws and laughed between fangs of various sizes and designs.
Ellen left the roadhouse for Jim’s church where another hunter priest was organizing resistance, furious and with nothing to lose anymore, her late husband’s weapons the only thing she took with to call home.
In the abandoned bar, Jo flickered into a new existence and blinked and was confused, but she’d been a hunter and that meant she at least knew what the hell a ghost was, so there was no despair and no crying. Only waiting for an opportunity.
“I need you to help me solve my case, Ash.”
Ash raises his eyes to stare through overgrown bangs of hair.
“I need to track down my killer.”
“Alright.”
In the morning, they head out together.
The End.