This stuff is bloody good, Jester. I can't give any critisisms, because there isn't anything wrong with it. Keep writing, mate

Jester, this is awesome. It's the best story on this forums, not a single one is even close.

I identify a bit with Harper. He's a cool character, does his job. An in the latest installment you can feel his surivval instinct kicking in along with his responsibility. Even if he's been hit by a shell he tries to shrug it off.

This story simply blew me away, i wish i was as good as you at writing jester.

Thank you all for your comments!

Keyes- As always, I appreciate it man. I'll keep writing whenever I can!

Elite Viking- That's a pretty steep compliment, I'll try to keep it that way. Also, thanks for telling me who you can identify with. I'm going to be continuing character development throughout the story, I hope you continue to like it.

Nikku- Wow! I've enjoyed your (many) stories here too. Each are a quick, entertaining read. Keep writing!

The next installment will be coming soon, not to mention the beginning of Part III.

Any more comments/criticisms/concerns/questions?

Until then, keep enjoying (and enjoy after that too).


VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
New Installment Posted Below
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

This post has been edited by Jest3r on August 06, 2006 06:45 pm

UPDATE: New installment of The First Scream coming soon, within the next seven days! I apologize for the recent delays between the posting of these selections.

Any readers out there with any comments/questions/concerns?

Look here soon for the next installment!

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
New Installment Posted Below
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

This post has been edited by Jest3r on August 06, 2006 06:44 pm

I have a concern: IT'S TAKING TOO DAMN LONG!!!!

Seriously, though, I'm looking forward to it. And welcome back, by the way. You keep disappearing, mate

Finally!

I'd relate to Davis, gets shot a lot. But seriously man, good story, just started reading it and I'm stuck to it, hurry up with the next one!

This post has been edited by JBMatt on July 29, 2006 10:43 pm

RECAP: West Town has desperately set up three barricades on each of the Platinum Bridges; West, Central, and East. The onslaught of the creatures has not ceased for hours. Panic and confusion still rule the day

Two figures sat atop a building overlooking the Platinum Bridges. It was an older apartment building, set apart from most of the rest of its counterparts in the Northern Precincts by its uniquely old design. Architectural plans initially showed the tower as stretching ninety seven stories, however, zoning codes of the time prevented the building from extending any higher than seventy. These building limits were in place for the planned West Town Airport, a project which fell through after several major corporations moved their plants in West Town to more lucrative posts.

Thus, two figures sat atop an antique, seventy story building overlooking the Platinum Bridges. Both were clad in identical grey, white, and black camouflage armor and uniforms, red piping outlining their otherwise hidden forms.

"Jack? Command needs confirmation on the mission battery," asked one of the men. His companion had his attention focused through two blackened lenses.

"Look at that... beautiful," said the red soldier with the binoculars. A simple thing like hunger driving the single greatest event in human history, he added with a slowly perverting smile. His tongue slowly slipped through his lips in a sort of greedy anticipation. This was what he had been waiting for, at least that's what he needed to show.

"Jack, confirm impacts down the line."

"Yes, Nine. I heard you the first time. Confirm impacts East battery, Central battery. West battery ineffective. Looks like the Eastern blockade is gone."

Red Nine turned to his headset and repeated what Jack just told him. A short moment after, he nodded, placed the radio down, and crawled up to the ledge of the building. He watched as thousands of tiny bubbles rose to the surface of the river. Officers on the far side of the bridge fired futile round after futile round into the water, concentrating their fire even more on the shore where the creatures rose up to fulfill their hunger once more.

"Fire mission battery, fox adjust left on West mission zone, point two two six," said Red Nine. His headset crackled in acknowledgement. Slowly, his hands drew his slender rifle to bear in his hands. His eye approached the scope to observe the impacts.

Jack laughed in anticipation as the rounds flew over their heads. Their screeching sound became apparent to the officers, their legs carrying as far away from the impacts as possible.

"Wait," said Red Nine, a hint of caution on his voice. "Jack, did you hear a second battery?"

Jack snapped his eyes to the sky, his ears focused on his environment. "Impossible, maybe they," more thumps. "There it is. Ask command if they shifted target sectors," said Jack slightly perturbed. His show had been interrupted.

"Red Command, this is Red Nine, did another team change the mission battery?" Silence. Red Command, please respond.

A soft gust of wind picked up the layer of dust which lay dormant on top of the building, billowing the dirt playfully into tiny cyclones before dropping it down gently. Sharp cracks in the earth followed by a new flurry of gunfire and screams interrupted the tranquility on top of the building. Jack laughed playfully, slamming back the bolt on his rifle to let a round enter the chamber.

"Say again? Please come again," a loud crack. Jack coolly cocked his rifle once more, "hush up Jack. Say again Command? Battery, you're breaking up command..."

Static. "...battery inbound locate..." Red Nine looked up. "Jack, we have to get off this roof, now. The battery shifted, they could be redirected closer to us."

"Oh yes, run. Run, run, run!" Jack let out a breathy chuckle, blood focused through his scope. His ears were closed to his partner. "They'll find us in the end. They always find us," Jack drew himself up to a crouched position. His binoculars were set aside as he groped for his rifle, unwilling to remove his eyes from the terrible battle. "You run that way? Well," a thunderous clap tore through the air. "I just can't have that, Officer. No, don't try and help him," he shuddered with anticipation. "here, I can see you just as easily, maybe..."

"Something has happened to our rear guard, it could be subterfuge, maybe they," he stopped as Jack began to speak.

"You don't understand. They'll find us in the end. We both failed our missions. I killed those officers trying to retrieve the explosives before we could obtain them. Mullins' team, if the intel was correct. I killed them but the explosives weren't there," Jack set down his rifle and stood up to face Red Nine. "What did you say when we got here? Your mission failed too? Check your radio now. Seems like they changed frequencies on us, doesn't it?" Jack took two steps toward Red Nine.

"Don't jump to conclusions," Jack's eyes narrowed. Red Nine reconsidered what he was saying. "Yes," he began hesitantly, "I was assigned the second S.W.A.T. team, I had to stop them from retrieving that mission data, my trap didn't go off, but listen, there isn't time, command was trying to send-" Red Nine abruptly stopped speaking as Jacks eyes glistened in a cold fear. Two blue eyes darted nervously to the left and right.

Static now completely filled their headsets.

Jack moved his mouth, yet no vocalized words came out. Red Nine began to speak, but was stopped by a hand motion from him. Jack once again mouthed three words.

They are listening.

Red Nine scrambled to his feet, kicked up gravel as he did.

Where are they?

Jack casually waved his eyes to his left. Two distant figures were silhouetted on an adjacent skyscraper, stories above them.

Red Command thinks were saboteurs. Get set to move.

Jack slowly reached toward his right thigh where his sidearm was holstered. His hand began to tremble as he unhooked the highest restraint and thumbed back the hammer.

***

Harper, now fully able to operate, stood tall amidst the cold noise surrounding him. "Shift your fire east, I can see the most ripples in the water that way," he said to the machine gun crew to his right, grunting to move the heavy emplacement.

"We just got orders to shift west, give us some cover, corporal," came a gruff reply from one of the men. Izzy's head snapped around upon hearing this.

"What orders? I haven't seen our CO, and-" She briefly turned her attention to the river to fire off a quick burst of the shots. She continued, a note of suspicious panic on her words, "and all of the radios have been out since the fighting began."

Another member of the machine gun crew grunted while lifting the heavy emplacement with his other crewmen. "Damnit, we don't question the orders, they come in, we follow 'em. Look at the situation, no matter which way we turn this thing they're going to keep coming!"

With a heavy thud, the crew dropped the gun and quickly hammered down its support. "Get that belt in!"

"I'm working on it, damnit," the second crewman quickly slammed a belt into the ammunition feed and tapped his gunner on the back of the helmet. "Good to go."

A heavy thunder crashed through the air, detonating skulls and hungry flesh throughout the water. Shells sprinkled out of the right side of machine gun like brass rain, their shells no longer shining due to a fine sprinkling of powder. For each heavy crack of the gun chamber, three or four bullets flew out at fatal velocities toward their prey.

"Check your fire left, seven on the beach!"

"Lieutenant, get your men off that ledge, pull back around us and provide fire support when we change out our barrel," the gunner cried out, releasing the trigger for a moment to make sure his words were heard.

Adrenaline pumped through Harper's veins. He barely noticed the ground shattering behind him as more mortar shells detonated close by.

A man, standing tall on a ledge with a connecting ramp to the waterfront turned his head angrily as the magazine fell from his pistol. "There are too many! If we leave this position they'll," he slapped in a fresh load of protection, "swarm up."

One of the crewman shuddered as the machine gun let out a particularly loud burst of fire. He looked back up at the Lieutenant, shaking his head negatively. "What? I can't hear you."

"I said," a scream from behind the Lieutenant interrupted his message and sent him running to a nearby railing. "Hold on, I've got you, just hold-" his mouth opened once more, blood erupting from its crevasse.

Harper recognized that sickening sound again, that deadly, electrified pulse through the air followed by a dull thud and splatter. The Lieutenant fell to the ground, gasping for air to reach lungs which were barely there anymore. A hole lay dormant in his chest. His arms flailed hopelessly once or twice into the air, calling for some sort of impossible aide which would save him.

Time seemed to slow down as the repetitious rhythm of the heavy machine gun tore the air apart. Harper found himself laying on the ground instinctively, staring at the Lieutenant. A nearby officer ran to his aide, only to be pounded into the pavement by a second, well aimed round. Something seemed to glimmer in the Lieutenants eyes as he looked eastward, toward the end of the causeway. His eyes grew wider. Death was sprinting at him from the broken Eastern barricade. Thousands of deaths, hunger propelling their legs.

The smell of gunpowder was so thick. Vapors of hunger, terror, death all slithered into the nostrils of the surviving denizens of the Southern Precincts.

Harper rolled on his back to face the east, his vest gently pressing against his back as it did.

Sweat spilled out onto the pavement from the creases in his clothing. Harper stood to his knees and hastily slammed more shells into his shotgun.

Izzy now saw what Harper had turned to look at. "To the east. To the east," she leveled her submachine-gun, firing two rounds. "They're coming from the east!"

"To your flank, officers, form a firing line," cried an unknown authority figure.

"To your hell, then," a youthful man stood up and stripped off his vest. "Good luck," he began to sprint away, throwing away other escape-hindering items. His panic disappeared with him as he rounded the corner of a building and ran off.

"Open fire, shift them toward the edge."

Izzy looked to her right, at Harper. "We've got to get back to the secondary lines, or at least back to Poole, he can cover us on the way back."

"What about Davis? He's still in that medical tent," replied Harper, loud machine gun bursts causing him to pause every few words.

"We can get him if we fall back now, we're being overrun, but-" she held her breath, and her left hand up to her ear. She lowered the MP-5, smoke spiraling out the blackened tip. "Say again?"

Harper could not stand and wait for the answer. He dashed forward a few paces and stood atop a fire hydrant, leaning on a lamp post as he did. They came by the thousands to the east. In front of him, a thin, badly supplied handful of police officers and National Guard Personnel fired desperately into the approaching horde. With every second they paused to reload their weapons, the mass dashed closer and closer. Harper latched open the chamber on the side of his shotgun, making sure he had loaded a slug. Calm fingers twitched up the back sights as he lined up his shot.

Izzy's voice shouted in the background of his mind, "Communications are back online, I'm trying to get Poole."

Hold steady but breathe in and out. Let every inhale and exhale shift your sights, his training took control over his adrenaline filled body. All tensing muscles briefly relaxed in the final second before his shot, Kill the suspect, make no mistakes. Kill the suspect and live another day.

His shotgun let forth a burst of flame. The upper body of Harper rocked backward gently, absorbing the kickback of the weapon perfectly. His left hand pumped another shell into the firing chamber. He did not pause to see the row of creatures he had cleared with a single, well aimed slug.

"Poole, this is Izzy at the Central Bridge, do you copy?" she slung her MP-5 around her back as she crouched down and put her free hand to other ear. "Say again?" a pause. "Shit. Harper, flick on that long-range radio over there."

Harper, breaking his trance, turned around and adjusted the long-range radio. Bursts of gunfire and static alike interrupted the speaker periodically. "All breaking... get back to secondary... East has... all fall ba-"

"Iz, lets get the hell out of here, now!"

Izzy tapped the machine gun crew on their helmets, pointed east, then ran over to Harper. "We can't just leave those officers like that, they haven't heard the call for retreat yet."

"There's no time, they're coming over the edges here,"

"But, we can't just-"

"We're being overrun," said an increasingly angry Harper. "Damnit Izzy, for once, we have to come first. If we don't make it back, more people will have to die."

The two friends stood there on the road, breathing heavily through the combat filled air. The intensity in their eyes matched the noises and horrid smells drifting through the air, like two beasts eyeing each other for first rights to the prey.

"Think of those people stuck in their cars, those things beating at the windows."

Izzy blinked. Her eyes shone as the sun glorified her tears. "Poole," she said, her voice trembling. "We're getting back there, cover us."

"Negative!" Poole shouted. So loud was his volume that Harper could hear the panic in his voice through Izzy's headset. Four distinct gunshots from the radio followed this cry. "They've broken through, they're behind us, they're everywhere. Get out anyway you can, get out, we can't-"

Grunts. A gunshot. Muffled cries.

Izzy began to sprint toward the south road, toward Poole's vantage point. "Poole!" she cried into her headset.

"Izzy, no! You heard him, they're down that road," Harper broke into a run.

"He's still alive, we can do this," Harper caught up to her, grabbing her arm.

"We have to move west, those barricades are still operat-" Izzy jerked to get away. "Izzy, you will die if you go down that road."

Her voice grew fierce as she ripped herself away from her friend. "Then let me. We have lost everyone today. Everyone."

With that, Izzy turned away and ran toward the south road. Harper did not wait to see her turn down the street. He began to sprint westward, tapping shoulders and helmets on his way as he did, yelling, "The line's collapsed. Get to the Western Barricade, the line's collapsed!"

His boots scratched the pavement, bits of debris and shells flying backward as they did. The sick symphony of shells sprinkling on the road, screams fulfilling the chorus, drove him faster and faster. For now, he kept the thoughts in the back of his mind.

You're letting them die.

No. Keep going, you have to live through this; more people are depending on you.

Barnet, Adams, Harrison, Alice, Sanders. Murderer

You have to do this. This is your duty.

Murderer, they were your friends. Barnet, Adams, Harrison, Alice, Sanders, Poole, Davis, Izzy. Weren't they your duty as well?

Harper shook his head as he continued to sprint toward the Western Barricade. He turned around briefly to see the machine gun crew begin to run, only to be taken beneath a swarm of horrific suffering.

He recalled his training once more.

If the suspect has not gone down, fire again. Fire until they are destroyed. You will live. Keep firing. Fire again.

An echo of broken conscious, slowly softening as the crescendo of battle raged on.

And again. And again and again

To be continued

***




This post has been edited by Jest3r on November 17, 2007 05:42 pm

Yay!

Wow. Just...wow. You definitely have not lost your touch, Jester

Aww man, that was really good. And long too! To compensate for your absense. Nice work!

Awesome as always! Can't think of much more to say, however I'm a bit confused about the Lieutenant and the other policemen getting sniped. Why are the Red guys so mean

Thank you all for reading! If you haven't told me what you think of the sotry and the latest installment already, please do. I appreciate the responses, it helps me shape the next chapters.

I tried to go with a rapid set of plot twists in this latest installment in order to propel the overall story in a direction which could eventually come to an effective climax. This in turn changed the style of writing, something which reads more like a screenplay than it does like a short story.

I hope you've enjoyed The First Scream. It will be continued. Thank you.

To Keyes and Security Corporate: Haha, thank you for the responses. I'll try not to extend my absence for so long this time.

To Elite viking: Your question will be explained in the next installment. Keep reading!

This post has been edited by Jest3r on August 09, 2006 04:52 pm

I would like to pose a question, one which I would appreciate all readers of The First Scream to answer.

The question is:
How long would you like The First Scream to continue for? I mean this in terms of sheer length. Would you like to see twice the number of present installments? Perhaps just a few more?

Your answers will be helpful. I do plan to write this story into a very long piece, but for the forums, I would like to get an idea of what general length you all would like it to be.

Thank you!

This post has been edited by Jest3r on September 07, 2006 02:40 am