Jenny sat on her bed and stared out the bedroom window. The world was quiet.
Normally one would be able to hear the town bustle, even from this distance; the faint sound of people’s voice, cars, the honk of the train… now, there was nothing. A person crept from tree to tree, looked around wildly, then dashed into the next door neighbour’s house. Well, there was almost nothing.
The neighbours next door were only receiving three or four visitors a day now instead of four an hour, and even that was too much. Clearly, people wanted to get high whilst they were trapped in their homes. They were all bogans though, she had half a mind to contact the police just to be annoying. Those people were supposed to be in their homes; not next door acquiring drugs or whatever it was on offer over there. She grimaced as she briefly imagined the gross couple offering their bodily services. No. It had to be drugs.
Not that she was against such a thing, she had enjoyed shrooms and a few LSD tabs herself back in the day when she was an irresponsible teenager, but these people looked like proper meth-heads. Gaunt frames, wild eyes, ratted clothing… they weren’t partaking just for a lark; this was their way of life. Sad, really.
It had been a week since the public health emergency had been declared and people were confined to their homes. On the first night she thought that she had heard that disgusting pop-pop-popping sound in the distance, but was it was probably her imagination. She hoped it was her imagination. It hadn’t been her imagination, had it? She bit her lip, whipped away from the window, and collapsed onto the bed.
Raising her arm up into the air, she investigated every inch of her skin to see if there were any strange bumps forming, just as she had every day since the night at the Whistling Fart. She didn’t feel sick or feverish yet; she felt completely fine, so that was one thing at least. Lifting her leg, she felt for any abnormalities but couldn’t find a single thing. Staring at her stomach, she noticed one new freckle that she hadn’t seen before, but there were no bumps, lumps, pimples, or anything green and bulbous. Maybe she was fine. Maybe she could leave her room. Socialise. Even if the only person she could socialise with was quite eccentric.
No. Not yet. She couldn’t risk it.
Grabbing her laptop, she sat cross-legged on the floor and leant back against the wall. If there was one small light in all of this darkness, it was the literal light. Electricity was still on. There was probably only a skeleton crew working at the power station due to current events, but they needed to be there. Could you imagine the uproar if people were confined to their homes and had no electricity? It would be absolutely horrifying.
A small smile touched her lips as she remembered the night Joey wanted to go backyard camping. He had asked what she would do in an apocalypse and she had responded, “Before or after everyone pillages downtown and murders one another?” That’s exactly what would happen with no electricity and all these poor people under such stress. Perhaps Joey was a prophet. She giggled. No, he was just making fun of her because she had the audacity to complain about not showering for one measly day. The possibility of exploding in a cloud of infective mushroom spores seemed a lot worse, that was for sure.
Tapping around on the laptop, she tried to ignore the thousands of news articles and blogs about this great fungal menace, but wherever she went there was only talk of ‘The Crepitus’. Apparently calling it by its proper name was too tiring for most people.
“I’ve stopped eating crepes,” one woman whispered in a video-log. “What if the crepitus hides in crepes? Even ones I make myself are dangerous! I can’t risk it.”
Ridiculous. Common sense was flying out the window faster each day. Crepes sounded pretty good though. She hadn’t really eaten much over the past few days. She drank plenty of water, and Joey had tried to lure her out of the room with the promise of sausages and potato, but she had waited for the soft click of the front or back door, the sound that signified his descent into the basement, then had rushed out into the kitchen to quickly annihilate whatever was sitting on the table before racing back to the bedroom.
It had been a week! She wasn’t sick and there were no bumps on her skin, she had watched so many videos and read so many articles and blogs about this new disease, and she wasn’t experiencing any of the symptoms. Maybe she had been lucky. Maybe she could risk going into the kitchen so she could make some crepes, or pancakes, or pikelets, or something as equally delicious.
A wave of saliva flooded her mouth and set her stomach rumbling, weakening her resolve.
Yes. She would risk it.
Leaping upright, she hurried down the stairs two at a time and nearly cartwheeled into the kitchen. The thought of delicious breakfast goods a beacon that lit up the darkness of the past few days. She might still explode, but at least she would have glorious foods in her belly.
Whipping open the pantry, she shoved aside cans of spaghetti and baked beans, a couple of sweet corn cans, and an ancient packet of tortillas that were growing mould even inside their airtight packaging.
“Gross,” she muttered beneath her breath, shoving them further into the back of the pantry. Joey could deal with them.
There was no flour. No sugar. No lazy-person’s-pancake-mix. There was nothing. Well, almost nothing. She didn’t want spaghetti though, she wanted pancakes! She slumped down onto one of the dining chairs and sulked. Pancakes aside, what were they going to do when the spaghetti ran out? There were probably more sausages in the freezer, but those would run out soon enough too. They couldn’t leave the house and they were banned from Blair’s anyway.
Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. The heavy wood of the front door swung open and a large thump echoed through to the kitchen. What was Joey doing now? She rolled her eyes and wandered down the hall to see what he had broken.
“—and stay inside!” barked an authoritative voice.
Jenny’s eyes widened as she caught a glimpse of a police officer in full protective gear just before they slammed the door shut. Joey had been pushed inside and had fallen against the wall. He climbed to his feet, dusted himself off, then gave her a big smile.
“You’re finally out of your room!”
“Yes, yes,” she waved his statement away. “What on earth were you doing out there? You’re not allowed to be out there!”
Joey shrugged.
“There was a chicken. I wanted to catch it and cook it for dinner.”
“It was probably someone’s pet!” She paused, then said, “Besides, we could get far more from it if you kept it for eggs, not for its chicken meats.”
“Yeah, but I thought a chicken curry would be tasty enough to get you out of your room.” He shrugged again. “Next time I won’t get caught. There has to be a better way… maybe I could make some traps!”
Jenny closed her eyes for a long moment.
“Joey, you can’t just leave traps for the neighbourhood chickens. They belong to other people and there are other animals out there too!”
“And I bet they’re all delicious. Can you imagine a possum stew? Mmm.”
“That’s terrible!” Jenny’s first instinct was to punch his shoulder, but she restrained herself. She still wasn’t sure if she was infected or not. If she was he was already doomed, but still, she wouldn’t touch him. “Speaking of food… we have none. What are we going to do?”
“What are you talking about? We have plenty of food!”
“No, we don’t.”
Joey shook his head, sashayed down the hallway with a wiggle in each step, and flung open the freezer. “A-ha!” he shouted gleefully, retrieving an ice cream container from within its depths. “See? We even have ice cream.”
Jenny wandered over to the freezer and looked inside. She had been right about the sausages: there was enough there for them both for the next week. There were also four other ice cream containers, a single bag of frozen vegetables, and two loaves of bread. Apparently ice cream was more important than proper, actual food.
Without a word, she opened the fridge. There were three bananas — gross — milk that expired last week — also gross — and some very sad looking vegetables.
“This is terrible,” she muttered.
“Capturing rampant neighbourhood chickens doesn’t sound too bad now, does it?” Joey replied, his voice muffled.
She shot him a glare, then rolled her eyes. He was already spoon deep into the ice cream container. Taking several gleeful bites of the ice cream, Joey smacked his lips happily, placed the container back in the freezer, and walked out the back door.
“Gonna find something to capture chickens with. If people can’t keep them locked up, they’re free game.”
There was no point stopping him. Joey was going to do whatever Joey wanted to do; he always did.
Wandering into the loungeroom, Jenny sat on the couch for the first time in a week and sighed. This was much more comfortable that sitting in bed, or sitting on the floor against the wall. Her mattress was great and all, but you just couldn’t sit on it for a long period of time without becoming overwhelmed by aches and pains. Or maybe she was just getting old.
There was nothing on the television. Just the same horror and gloom she had engrossed herself with on the laptop. There were re-runs of various sitcoms on another channel, but she didn’t care. She’d already seen them. No one was filming anything new. Even the News was home to stock images and voiceovers. What on earth were people doing to keep themselves occupied?
At least Joey was keeping himself amused, making home-brewed wine and capturing the neighbourhood chickens. Part of her was horrified he would try to capture them, the other part of her wanted him to succeed. Did that make her just as terrible as he? She moistened her lips, sunk down into the couch, then leapt upright as a bang echoed outside.
Racing to the window, she gasped as a plume of green wafted out the window of one of the modern brickhouses that sat at the opening of the cul-de-sac.
“Joey!” she screamed. “Get inside, now!”
The backdoor slammed shut and footsteps thumped into the house.
“What is it?”
Jenny pointed a shaky finger to the window, at the wisps of green that swirled out of the brick house and spiralled into the sky, drifting along a wind current as a cloudy ribbon — an evil, noxious cloudy ribbon.
“The crepitus,” she whispered. “It’s here. In the street. Someone just exploded,” she shrieked. “In our street!”
“Eh, it was bound to happen,” came Joey’s nonchalant reply. “I was expecting someone next door to explode first, honestly.”
“That would be even worse! They’re next door.”
Joey stared up at the spiralling green cloud-ribbon and tapped the window sill impatiently.
“How long do you reckon it’ll hang around? I need to finish my chicken traps.”
“Forget your chicken traps!” Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth as she watched the green cloud swirl around the sky. “My window is broken and doesn’t close properly. I can’t be in my room any more.”
“There’s room in my room,” Joey winked.
Jenny forgot her previous choice to not touch him and landed a punch on his shoulder.
“I don’t think so.”
Sirens rang out in the distance, growing louder by the second, then an ambulance pealed around the corner and squealed to a stop outside of the brick house. Four people wearing protective gear leapt out of the vehicle, broke open the front door and raced inside.
Jenny turned away from the window before they could drag a body-bag out the door and slumped down the wall and onto the floor. It was here. The crepitus was in their street. They were doomed. Even if neither of them were infected yet, the crepitus was in, their, street!
“Oh, cool,” Joey said, still staring out the window. “They have this vacuum cleaner thing and are sucking up the spores.”
“They can’t get it all,” she muttered. “There are probably bits of it all over street.”
“The ambos are gone now. Now there’s a cleaning crew going into the house.” He looked down at her. “They know what they’re doing, Jenny. Back to the chicken traps!”
Jenny remained slumped against the wall as Joey ran back outside, seemingly unaware of the danger facing them. He was going to be the death of them both, she just knew it.
Helloooo! It's Day Nine of a sudden onset of Writing Madness -- a NaNoWriMo-inspired challenge that uses the daily #freewrite prompt to help create a full story within the confines of a mere month.
It's the weekend freewrite today so there is no fresh prompt, but because I took yesterday off for birthday purposes, I shall be using @mariannewest's freewrite prompt for yesterday which was ~ a better way ~ used by Joey, in the middle there. 😁
Today's writing was heavy on the inner monologue. I personally enjoy reading and writing that sort of stuff, but not really sure if it was "too much" or not. 😬 I've gotten to the part of the story where I come up with all sorts of ridiculous things that could happen while they're stuck in home containment. It's basically "filler" before the story continues, but it's fun filler, and also characterises the characters a little more.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of trying out a cucumber inspired mocktail at the restaurant we went to! I saw it on the menu and had no choice but to try it. It's not cucumber wine or anything, completely non-alcoholic as I'm avoiding such things at the moment, but in honour of my story I decided to give it a go.
It was pretty good! Not something I'd normally drink, but good for something a little different.
This is a very rough first draft of an upcoming book and will be tidied up and polished after this Month of Madness is finished. 😊 It might read like fast-paced-rushed-word-garbage at the moment, but it will be refined! (I over-edit like a madwoman.)
Title is a placeholder and will probably not be the final name of the book. 🤣 This story has nothing much to do with whistling but the local pub is called the Whistling Fart, things will go down there, and there will likely be a terrible amount of fart jokes. Because I'm uncultured and farts are funny. 🤷♀
Today's wordcount is 2,182
Total wordcount is 20,380 / 50,000
📝 A Quick Blurb 📚
Genre: immature adult comedy, reverse coming-of-age, apocalyptic silliness
Warning: irreverent, offensive humour
Jenny is a young lady in her mid-20's who finds herself out of work, out of home, and out of luck. An old friend from school has invited her to stay at his house until she gets back on her feet, but she just can't seem to land on them.
Every job opportunity she finds goes spectacularly wrong. The Great Fungus is spreading across the world and consuming all in its path. Then, to top it off, a solar flare renders electricity a thing of the past.
Faced with the end of the world as she knows it, Jenny has a choice. Will she embrace this apocalyptic madness... or will she, too, be consumed by the fungus?
Thank you for reading! 📚😊
See you tomorrow for Day Ten! 📝🤓