Trigger Finger

[chuck_the_plant]

Brigit's Flame - February 2012, week 1 entry 
Prompt:  Thank you 
Title:  Trigger Finger 
Wordcount:  ~1700, rated PG-13 for mild language and violent imagery 
Author:  Graham Smith (chuck_the_plant)

My ears filled with thunder when she pulled the trigger.  She blinked involuntarily against the sound and her shoulders moved less than they did the last

Comments

[maniccartoonist]

Modern zombie apocalypse stories are so hard to get right. Even when they're done really well (like this one), they can be difficult for me to read because the tension is so high. I have the same problem with Kirkman's "Walking Dead"; it's essentially a human interest story at heart, but with mortal peril around (sometimes literally) every corner the tension gets so high that it raises my blood pressure to even read it. You did a great job in this story of walking a fine line between heart-attack-inducing tension and real human emotion. Great!

[belluminabyssus]

Really interesting! I like Sasha's character a lot, and I really feel for what she's been through. I think there's maybe a biiit too much exposition for my tastes near the beginning, but I definitely see why you needed to include all that information. Nice work this week!

[greenwillow27]

I like this. You managed to get a lot of character development, especially Sasha's, set up in a short space against the tense backdrop of the zombie apocalypse. I made sense in that setting that your narrator would lose it and snap back at the kid, which led to the crisis of her leaving.
Lots of drama in a short short.

[slang_jockey]

My original idea for the prompt was in the zombie apocalypse direction, but I'm glad I didn't do it; I wouldn't have been able to compete with this! I would agree with belluminabyssus about the beginning, except I'm on the fence about it, because it would be just fine if this was the start to something a bit longer. Nice work.

[osoreranai]

Wow. Not only did you make a good zombie story, but you threw in a bunch of references to current culture that just made this all the more poignant. The relationship between Sasha and the narrator was particularly believable, I thought.