Wages of Law, part 2
Nov. 5th, 2008 03:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demonicgerbilJust for you Celes, I went ahead and posted what I'd gotten done earlier with a few additions.
Chapter 5
The old farmer wiped sweat from his brow. Farming had gotten a lot harder since diesel fuel became impossible to get hold of. The old solar panels breaking down a few years back meant he couldn't even use his electric car as a tractor. Fortunately one of the cows didn't seem to mind to mind too much to being forced to pull the plow. There were also the kids too, sometimes a team of them could handle pulling the plow okay.
It's a bit past planting season now though, and the farmer's thoughts were less concerned with plowing fields and sowing seeds than with the news a wandering trader brought that a lawyer army was heading west from the city. The occasional wandering lawyer with his briefcase was enough of a worry, but hundreds of them? Hundreds of lawyers, teeming, shambling, and scurrying across the countryside under the cover of day... "That is a terrifying thought."
The children, some of them almost adults, toiled in the field.
Chapter 6
The stench was overwhelming. The air had become a poison, spewing forth from the fiery font of putrescence. The dancing flames leaped forth in the evening, casting an ashen pallor across the sky, a deathly haze that carried with it the dark madness of the day. The orange evening late faded on the horizon, and for a moment before the sun vanished, there was an instant of green light.
With a heft, John Stalwart tossed another body on his bonfire. He'd spend the better of two days cleaning up the carnage. There were still rotting, fetid body parts here and there, but the main body of corpses had been cleared from around the house.
He walked back into his home, shut and locked the doors, and finally removed his gas mask. He nearly retched on the spot, the smell from his clothes and hair overwhelming. Sandwich in hand, he headed for the shower. While the water warmed, he finished eating, and then he finally cleaned himself.
After an inspection for injuries, he dressed in comfortable clothes and went down to spend the night with the family. He always enjoyed that. And so did they.
Chapter 7
John Stalwart went out scavenging, as he did one day every week. He preferred to scavenge in daylight. Out in the suburbs the bigger threat was from other humans and not the lawyer hordes. There wasn't much to find anymore, but the exercise and usually clean air did him some good.
He ran across a small trading caravan a few miles from his home, camped out in what had once been a children's playground but was now an overrun tangle of tall grasses and kudzu. He traded some of his bounty with them in exchange for ammunition. Bone may be one of the more common tool-making materials available anymore, but that didn't mean it wasn't useful. John knew that a lot of people liked to use them for everything from clubs and spears to decorations. He himself had found use for a humerus once, conveniently finding it near where he fell as he was overwhelmed by a pack of lawyers. He beat them to death that day, and so he always carried a few useful bones in his pack when he was out scavenging. You never know what could save your life, or be useful for trading.
John heard from the scavenger that a large group of lawyers was making its way out of the city, and that the rumor was another wave heading through the neighborhood soon. John thanked the man and headed to his home. He would need to do better than he had been doing if he was going to hold off another large group of lawyers again.
Chapter 5
The old farmer wiped sweat from his brow. Farming had gotten a lot harder since diesel fuel became impossible to get hold of. The old solar panels breaking down a few years back meant he couldn't even use his electric car as a tractor. Fortunately one of the cows didn't seem to mind to mind too much to being forced to pull the plow. There were also the kids too, sometimes a team of them could handle pulling the plow okay.
It's a bit past planting season now though, and the farmer's thoughts were less concerned with plowing fields and sowing seeds than with the news a wandering trader brought that a lawyer army was heading west from the city. The occasional wandering lawyer with his briefcase was enough of a worry, but hundreds of them? Hundreds of lawyers, teeming, shambling, and scurrying across the countryside under the cover of day... "That is a terrifying thought."
The children, some of them almost adults, toiled in the field.
Chapter 6
The stench was overwhelming. The air had become a poison, spewing forth from the fiery font of putrescence. The dancing flames leaped forth in the evening, casting an ashen pallor across the sky, a deathly haze that carried with it the dark madness of the day. The orange evening late faded on the horizon, and for a moment before the sun vanished, there was an instant of green light.
With a heft, John Stalwart tossed another body on his bonfire. He'd spend the better of two days cleaning up the carnage. There were still rotting, fetid body parts here and there, but the main body of corpses had been cleared from around the house.
He walked back into his home, shut and locked the doors, and finally removed his gas mask. He nearly retched on the spot, the smell from his clothes and hair overwhelming. Sandwich in hand, he headed for the shower. While the water warmed, he finished eating, and then he finally cleaned himself.
After an inspection for injuries, he dressed in comfortable clothes and went down to spend the night with the family. He always enjoyed that. And so did they.
Chapter 7
John Stalwart went out scavenging, as he did one day every week. He preferred to scavenge in daylight. Out in the suburbs the bigger threat was from other humans and not the lawyer hordes. There wasn't much to find anymore, but the exercise and usually clean air did him some good.
He ran across a small trading caravan a few miles from his home, camped out in what had once been a children's playground but was now an overrun tangle of tall grasses and kudzu. He traded some of his bounty with them in exchange for ammunition. Bone may be one of the more common tool-making materials available anymore, but that didn't mean it wasn't useful. John knew that a lot of people liked to use them for everything from clubs and spears to decorations. He himself had found use for a humerus once, conveniently finding it near where he fell as he was overwhelmed by a pack of lawyers. He beat them to death that day, and so he always carried a few useful bones in his pack when he was out scavenging. You never know what could save your life, or be useful for trading.
John heard from the scavenger that a large group of lawyers was making its way out of the city, and that the rumor was another wave heading through the neighborhood soon. John thanked the man and headed to his home. He would need to do better than he had been doing if he was going to hold off another large group of lawyers again.