[writing] "Spendthrift"
A few days ago, I finished the first draft (plus one light revision) of "Spendthrift" at 5,200 words. We'll see how it goes with my first readers, and then with the requesting market. I kind of like it.
Meanwhile, some WIP:
The shoreline came rushing upward, a green fist folded over the troubled rim of the ocean. Waldo, or whoever was up on the flight deck with him, brought the Short Sunderland in hard, skimming the wavetops. Springfield supposed they were aiming for a welcoming stretch of beach. All she saw was the end.
Smoke curled through the cabin, and both engines were ragged and stuttering. The flying boat wallowed like a puppet with half its string cut. The Japanese were surely out there, following their prey to earth. Sharks on a dying swimmer.
Then the great fist of the land grabbed Springfield and punched her in the chest, took the air from her lungs and the fire from her belly and handed her only pain and pressure in return.
She was not so lucky as to pass out. Rather, she was thrown back and forth in her seat, somehow held in place by the flimsy safety harness, as the world outside the porthole dissolved into a mass of spray and sand and smoke.
“Out, out, out,” someone was shouting. Springfield didn’t know who. It might have been her. She still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, but she could unclip her belt and tumble from the chair and slide across the carpeted wall and see nothing but sand out of the opposite porthole on set into the floor.
A man was screaming as well, the kind of scream someone lets out when their arm is ripped off. She ignored that, ignored the smoke and flames and reek of fuel and the stuttering gunfire outside, to claw her way toward the portholes where the world still peered through. New Guinea was briefly surprised by her latest invader before the jungle would come to claim them all.
Meanwhile, some WIP:
The shoreline came rushing upward, a green fist folded over the troubled rim of the ocean. Waldo, or whoever was up on the flight deck with him, brought the Short Sunderland in hard, skimming the wavetops. Springfield supposed they were aiming for a welcoming stretch of beach. All she saw was the end.
Smoke curled through the cabin, and both engines were ragged and stuttering. The flying boat wallowed like a puppet with half its string cut. The Japanese were surely out there, following their prey to earth. Sharks on a dying swimmer.
Then the great fist of the land grabbed Springfield and punched her in the chest, took the air from her lungs and the fire from her belly and handed her only pain and pressure in return.
She was not so lucky as to pass out. Rather, she was thrown back and forth in her seat, somehow held in place by the flimsy safety harness, as the world outside the porthole dissolved into a mass of spray and sand and smoke.
“Out, out, out,” someone was shouting. Springfield didn’t know who. It might have been her. She still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, but she could unclip her belt and tumble from the chair and slide across the carpeted wall and see nothing but sand out of the opposite porthole on set into the floor.
A man was screaming as well, the kind of scream someone lets out when their arm is ripped off. She ignored that, ignored the smoke and flames and reek of fuel and the stuttering gunfire outside, to claw her way toward the portholes where the world still peered through. New Guinea was briefly surprised by her latest invader before the jungle would come to claim them all.