Prologue of City in the Snow
So as a better example of how I write, this was a prologue I wrote for a college book project that was unfortunately shot down by instructors.
Prologue of City in the Snow
"Where were you when it all went to shit?" Barry asked as he huddled close to the evening fire that faintly lit the impenetrable dark.
Barry was in the middle of his life in his late forties. The fire outlined his large frame and rotund belly. His wiry beard stretched along his chest and touched his bulk in his slouched posture while he polished the wooden butt of his rifle. He prided himself as a traditionalist, and frequently talked about the "good old days" when he would fix cars and go fish with friends. He was also a bitter xenophobe with an unexplained hatred for migrants.
"I was out in Portage," Wall replied as he slung a wool blanket over his shoulders. He stared into the tinder. "You could see it happening from where I was."
Wall was somewhat younger in his mid-to-late thirties. He was a university graduate in veterinary science and specialized in livestock. Only half of his narrow face could be seen in the light, not including the clump of raggedly trimmed hair on the end of his chin. He was thin in all accounts, and malnourished enough to struggle to carry his pack.
"Really? You say the sky opened up, spitting all those nasties out?" Barry leaned to his side, closer to Wall. His face was illuminated by the bonfire, showing off his broad brow and scruffy chin and the scar that ran up the side of his face from one to the other.
"Did you see the plane go down?" said Ness, the youngest of the three. His hair was the most prominent feature in the glow of the fire; long, tangled and wild. "Everyone at the camps talk about seeing it, but no one has the same details."
Ness was a college student, though he only completed his first year for a business diploma before the world took a turn. His body was somewhere in the middle between Barry and Wall's; an egg-shaped head with a thin beard on his neck and a little pudge around the belly, coupled with thin arms and stocky legs. On the day the three talked about, he enjoyed a weekend at his family's cabin, far north of the terrible spectacle.
Barry shook his head. "Nah. That must have happened closer to the airport. I was on the east Perimeter," he paused to strike a match to light his cigarette before he stuck the filter into his mouth. "Saw the wreck when I was on a scav team. It looked like it was torn apart by something with claws, though."
"Anyone in the plane? Any bones or whatever?" Wall said and leaned forward out of his seat with his hands reached out towards the heat to warm his fingers.
"No. Beasts got to them first," Barry replied.
After that moment of conversation, only the crackling fire and the occasional call of an owl broke the silence of the dark woods. One of the immolated logs snapped and sent embers into the sky before they faded from existence.
Wall slapped his palm on his knee and grunted as he stood upright. "I need to take a piss," he announced before turning away from the fire and stepping into the dark.
The other two by the fire remained to watch the dance of the flame upon the log. When it came time for Barry to throw another log onto the fire, Ness surveyed the ring around them. It must have been a good five minutes and Wall had not returned.
"Taking his time, eh?" Ness said with a quiver of worry in his throat.
Barry perked up and noticed that Wall still hasn't come back in time for the bark of the new log to start turn black and ashen. "Must've drank quite a lot," he said gruffly. "He did drink most of our coffee today."
Ness chuckled softly and relaxed his shoulders as he took a stick to prod at the fire. Another minute past, which became yet another five. Even Barry fidgeted with worry.
"We gotta move," Barry said with a cold, grim face. He stood up and started to pack his meager supplies into a rucksack.
"What about Wall?" Ness inquired. He also started to pack, but not quite at the frenzied pace as Barry.
Barry zipped up his pack and slung it over his shoulder, then picked up his rifle to hold at the ready. "He's gone, Ness. Long gone."
The young man exhaled. He knew what "long gone" meant among other scavengers. He packed his gear and slung his blanket over his shoulder for warmth in the brisk night while Barry doused the flames.
Thankfully, the cloud cover wasn't so bad as to block out the bright light of the pale moon from their encampment to their truck some hundred meters away. Still, there was a matter of the trudge through the brush to the old pickup truck.
The woods were silent and the wind was dead. Not even a squirrel could be heard skitter up a tree while the duo made their way. To say the silence would deafen would be a true statement if Ness didn't snap a twig underfoot while he struggled to keep pace with Barry ahead.
A sharp hiss sound made Ness and Barry stop on the path. Barry raised his gun and the two looked upwards to the sound to see a single white owl glare down at them. The two lowered they heads back to the path ahead and pressed forward. As they did, however, more and more of the white owls took to the branches to observe them from above.
Ness began to trail behind and felt a certain pressure against his chest. He looked up and peered into the deep eyes of the owls that reflected back the moon and a sea of stars. They were watching him. Every step and every breath, he knew they watched with a great deal more wit than any mundane owl had previously been given credit for.
The pressure became too great for Ness to even carry forward. He stopped and turned around to see the circle of birds start to puff out in intimidating postures.
"Barry?" Ness called, the older scavenger would not stop as he did to assess the scene as he left the younger comrade behind.
"Barry?!" he shouted again to prompt a couple screeches and hisses from the congregation. He turned back to the path to see the back of Barry fade into the dark, out from his field of view.
Ness felt his heart drum against his chest with a heavy bass. He gave a hurried chase, still without a visual on the old survivor.
Bang... Bang, bang.
Three shots rang out in the dark just up ahead. Barry had shot at something, and Ness deeply hoped he made those shots count.
As he approaches a widened portion of the path where he swore he heard the gunfire, not a thing was there, save for a few more owls sitting atop their high perches.
His breath quickened and his heart raced ever faster. Where was Barry? Based on the sound of the shots, he should have been here or around this position.
A fur more careful steps down the towards the sound. Still, nothing.
Eyes to the ground, he scanned for Barry's heavy footprints in the dim moonlight. Still, not a single clue.
He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to calm himself and stave off his panic. The last thing he needed to do was rush, miss things, scream, and otherwise make it clear to whatever was stalking his party that he was alone and scared witless.
He opened his eyes and exhaled deeply. His moment of meditation did pay off, however, as he noted some chunk of shiny, polished redwood just under a bush, just to the right of the path.
His approach was cautious, and he squatted to grab at the wooden piece.
As he thought; it was Barry's rifle.
Ness clutched it close to his chest. He could feel the warmth on the barrel against his hand. Whatever it was Barry shot at, Ness prayed that the creature was elsewhere, bled out and dead.
He held the rifle to his shoulder, felt the weight of the barrel sway in front of him. He looked for the sight and was thankful that it was still straight enough to shoot something from afar if he needed to.
He rested the gun to his side as he stepped down the path towards where the truck should be. It had to be a little more; likely just beyond the bend behind a tree.
Owls stared from up above in their roosts, and Ness found them to be a reliable audience for his situation. Their eyes looked down past their beaks, took note of his every motion. A rude gesture of his hand drew their eyes towards his boney fingers. A step out of pace had them examine the stringy meat of his calves from afar.
A crash of branches thundered from behind Ness, which startled him into a jump. He looked towards the direction, pointing the rifle at the source of the noise.
"Barry? Barry is that you?" he called out as he approached with a slow, cautious gait.
No reply.
Ness's heart thumped and his throat tightened. His eyes strained in the dark and tried to make out anything beyond the brush some thirty feet from him.
The tip of his rifle shook with his arms. If nothing jumped out from fifteen feet away, or even eight feet away, then nothing was likely there. Still, he had to be sure.
The metallic smell of iron hit his nose first. He noticed a dark, wet shimmer on the leaves. He used the rifle to bush aside the branches, and he felt his stomach leap into his throat.
Partially digested jerky and bile splashed against the ground as Ness vomited at the sight. There lay Barry, or rather what remained of him. His left arm and right leg had been torn from his body, and his intestines hung near the trees like vines from the hole torn into his once rotund belly.
Ness backed away and pulled his gaze away from the wretched sight. With the scene now behind the bush, he saw the white owls flutter down to the carcass.
The flap of wings and the soft squish and squelch from beyond the foliage was enough to renew the taste of his last meal in the back of his throat. Some of the birds flew back up to the branches with their white feathers now stained a dark red. Strips of muscle still in their talons, and one even jumped out from under the flora with Barry's punctured eye skewered in its beak before it was swallowed in a single vile gulp.
He turned and ran towards where he knew the truck would be. Something large enough to pick up and eviscerate a grown man likely hunted for him too, he thought, something that a rifle would not take care of.
In fact, he could hear the leaves on the trees rustle in an irregular rhythm, and the sky darkened as the moon's light was obscured for a brief moment. The wind picked up and blew like needles into Ness's face.
He ran faster.
The beat of his heart could not be heard over the howl of the wind and the horrid screech from his pursuer.
A few more paces, he thought. A few more paces and he'd hit the road for sure.
His boot crunched against the gravel, and he knew he made it. He turned his gaze left to stare into the dark abyss of the open road on a cloudy night. He turned right to see the glint of a headlight hardly forty feet away.
The wind stopped before Ness touched the hood of the rusty black truck and dragged along the side to find the handle. He tugged on it, then remembered that the keys were in Wall's pocket.
No matter, he thought with a smirk. The apocalypse teaches a lot of survival tricks; hotwiring cars among them.
With the butt of the rifle raised high, he brought it down against the driver-side window to break the glass. It shattered with miniscule bits in a single blow clearing the space.
Ness smiled as he thought of his return to the safety of the larger group. He thought of the warm, freshly baked bread they had at Checkpoint Teulon.
A metallic crunch snapped him from his fantasy, and a warm moisture washed over his arm, followed by pain. The roof and door of the truck buckled down over his arm, keeping it crushed, broken, and pinned in place. The intensity didn't yet register in his mind for him to react before he looked up.
A scaly leg topped with viciously curved talons tapped on the roof and punctured the metal easily. White fur, dappled with dark rosettes, connected the leg to a larger, feathered body.
His free arm raised, rifle in hand, and flimsily aimed it towards the mass. Unbearable pain pinged in his head at last as he let out a scream and clenched his finger on the trigger and relaxed for four pulls.
The large black eyes stared back at him, unfazed as the bullets singed the fibers of its breast feathers.
A large owl stared down at Ness.
A large owl with its court behind it in the branches.
When the clouds broke, the feathers gleamed white then red, and the court fed well upon the three unfortunate scavengers.