Untitled (Sci-fi/Fantasy Action Thriller)

[Kitt]

First off, I apologize if this is a ripoff of any other story/movie/whatever. Second, I'd like to know what you all think. This is a work in progress, and I'll update whenever I get the chance.

Death was upon us. It was very clear that nobody would get out of this. It was even more painfully clear that what was about to happen would not be pretty. But we were not the type to fear death. Instead, we embraced it as much as possible, taking down as many opponents as we could.
Fuckers didn’t know what was coming to them. We weren’t exactly armed to the teeth, but we weren’t exactly helpless, either. We had a few guns, some ammunition, and plenty of sharp, pointy objects. Knives, axes, a few throwing stars, glass bottles, and various other items. If it was sharp and small enough to hold, we probably had it. We even had a few sharpened brooms and hockey sticks, just for shits and giggles. Oh yeah, and for protection.
Sure, we all knew we were going to die, but we were going to go down fighting. For every one of us that got killed, we wanted two to go down with us. There ended up being about a hundred of us in the end, all of us holed up in a school building. At that point, all we could really do was hope to God that they couldn’t get in. So what were they?

We don’t know.
They were big fuckers, about 7 feet tall, with oversized features and only one nostril. They had thick bodies, with clearly defined chest and abdominal muscles, but with a sort of exoskeleton protecting it all. Their arms were ridiculously muscular. They looked like they were competitors for a “who has the biggest body and looks best while greased up and wearing a Speedo” contest. Their legs were strangely horse-like to the ankles, with kangaroo-like feet instead of hooves. They were fast, and they could literally tear you limb from limb in about the time it takes to pull the wings off a fly.
They were at a slight disadvantage though. It was the dead of winter, freezing cold. All they had were their bug-like bodies to keep them warm. We had the comforts of the school- heat, running water, electricity, and one crazy janitor who helped us out a lot. He even helped us build barricades and weld over anything the creatures could get in through.
Not like it mattered.

Dec 6:

So far, we’re holding pretty strong. 3 days ago, we were forced to seek shelter in this school. The town had just begun evac when we got here, and some of the more stubborn people were still sticking around. Like the janitor we found here. Mickey, he told us, was his name, and he wouldn’t leave until his job was done.
He was a very interesting fellow, at first. He was squirrelly and hid any time we would come near him. Yesterday, the medic got a hold of him and found out why Mickey was so screwy. He had been a test subject – willingly, of course – for a new medication that was eventually deemed unsafe. As it turned out, a few weeks after you stopped taking the meds, your body went through many hormonal changes. With the right antibiotics, people could recover fully in a matter of days, but Mickey somehow missed that memo.
He never got the memo on the evac, either. The poor bastard didn’t even know what was going on. Now he would be fighting for his life along with us. We were lucky enough to have been trained in military tactics, and unlucky enough to have had experience with these…whatever they were.

Six days ago, we came into contact with these things. There were eighteen of us. Now there are ten. Joey, Kristy, Shawn, Brienne, Damien, Elizabeth, Taylor, Devon, James, and I are the survivors. Clearly, it was hard on us to see our friends die one by one in front of us. But it was harder when Enyara was killed. Enya was our leader, an Amazon-looking woman with nerves of steel and a tough-as-nails exterior. When she was ripped apart, it was catastrophic. Now, Joey’s our leader, and Taylor and Devon are playing medic.
I work with Jim on communication and recon work, though we mainly stick to comm. Kris and Shawn are our weapon smiths, building and repairing, using that which they’ve scavenged. Brie, Damien, and Liza are what are left of our fighters. Liza also specializes in working with people. She speaks just about every language imaginable.

Not to romanticize it or anything, but the situation could have been worse. We still have half of our team, and we’re in a warm, relatively safe building. Those of us that are left in the building are like family…well, excluding Mickey. I guess I understand it. I mean, we’ve all been fighting for our lives, so the fact that Joey and Kris don’t trust him is reasonable, I guess. I don’t personally believe in it, but they just won’t let him be alone. Someone’s always charged with babysitting the slightly neurotic custodian.

Taylor and Devon seem to be getting cozy since we got here. Apparently, they had gone to the school together, and even though they weren’t friends then, they’re getting all nostalgic. It’s kind of making me sick. I wouldn’t begrudge them love or anything, but they’re our medics. If something happens to one of them, we need the other to be able to hold it together and not get all emotional. I can see that happening – if one of them gets hurt or killed, the other one’s going to end up falling to pieces. Sometimes people say that I have a sixth --

I hate interrupting myself, but there’s trouble. They’re trying to get in.

Dec 8:

I don’t know how we managed it, but we didn’t lose anyone in the wee hours of the morning between the 6th and 7th. We also managed to bring in about twenty more people or so. Now, there are 10 soldiers and a cleaning man to take care of two dozen odd civilians. A few of them were pretty hard up for meds and food when they got here, so we raided the nurse’s office and kitchen for supplies.
Liza talked to the people and got their stories. They had refused to believe that anything was trying to get them. So, they ignored the warnings and refused to evac. And then they came. I talked to one of them, Cody, who agreed to write down her story and explain why they decided to come here. Problem is, she’s asleep. It’s a real hassle sleeping when everyone else is awake, but with my job…you don’t want everyone to hear what kind of radio conversations go on. Especially when they’re so young. There’s a 7 year old who saw her brother get killed. She doesn’t need to hear, “Your situation is hopeless. Don’t expect any assistance.”
To be completely honest, I don’t need to hear that. Neither does Jimmy, for that matter. But we deal with it every time we make contact. They ask us if we’re kidding, then if we’re serious. After they get it through their thick skulls that we’re not bullshitting them, they ask us what crazy motherfucker sent us here. Best part is, the government sent us. We called in the need for a safe house, and they told us about the school.

We can only use about half of the building. The kitchen has no windows and a crappy ventilation system, so it’s pretty safe. We had to completely barricade the cafeteria, and that’s still not entirely “thing-proof.” The second floor is more useful, since the things aren’t very good at climbing and jumping, and there’s a ton of space. The auditorium is safe too, since it’s dead in the center of the school, with no outside entrances. If we need to, we can even go directly from there, through the catwalk, upstairs.

There’s a tiny basement to the school that used to be a bomb shelter and extra costume closet. We found all kinds of blankets, cots, and various other items that we’ve turned into beds. There were a few couches that we dragged to more secure locations, and all kinds of other furniture that we’ve used for barricades.
The tech/woodshop room originally looked rather handy, but the location isn’t very handy. It’s on an outside extremity of the first floor. In an hour, when Mickey gets up, the team is taking everything and bringing it all to one of the secured areas. The gym is considered our new medical center. With all of the outside doors welded shut and the lack of windows, nothing can get in. If nothing can get inside, we don’t have to worry about our wounded getting maimed further.

Not that it matters, but I’m in the com center, which was an old classroom on the second floor, on the inside area of the building. We’ve set up a few high-powered radios and hacked into the phone system, so we can call out at any time. We’ve had indoors scrounging expeditions every few hours since the fight, digging up whatever we could find. We’ve managed to stockpile some good stuff.
Come to think of it, I should go wake Mickey. We need the sports equipment from the gym lockers and stuff like that. Then Kris and Shawn can get working on turning them into good weapons. Once we’ve got a good store of that stuff, we can teach a few of the civilians how to fight. It may not do us much good, but we’ll take whatever we can.

[Torin Proud]

First off, I apologize if this is a ripoff of any other story/movie/whatever.

There's no need to apologize-we all plagerize the basic ideas of writing in some way.

Death was upon us.

It was very clear that nobody would get out of this. It was even more painfully clear that what was about to happen would not be pretty. But we were not the type to fear death.

Instead, we embraced it as much as possible, taking down as many opponents as we could.

I think this needs to be broke up, to pace the reader. I considered changig the tense of the verbs, but I don't know if that's correct. If it would be good for the feel. It sets the tone for the rest of the piece-deliberate, serious. This is life and death, not something to be trifled with.

This last bit though really bothers me, as it feels wrong:

, taking down as many opponents as we could.

I'd, personally, drop "opponents"-its too neutral a term when compared to the rest of the sentence. Its too surgical, and that sentence is far from surgical-it's gritty determination. It also sort of makes me think that at this point you weren't sure who the "bad guys" were.

Fuckers didn’t know what was coming to them. We weren’t exactly armed to the teeth, but we weren’t exactly helpless, either. We had a few guns, some ammunition, and plenty of sharp, pointy objects. Knives, axes, a few throwing stars, glass bottles, and various other items. If it was sharp and small enough to hold, we probably had it. We even had a few sharpened brooms and hockey sticks, just for shits and giggles. Oh yeah, and for protection.

While this certainly gets the point across, it again makes me think of some one who is either shell shocked-which could be the intent-or confused.

"We wouldn't give up with out a fight. After the ammo gave out, we would fall back-improvised weapons had been made. Some nothing more than jagged glass, and pointed sticks. Others a bit more deadly-IED's and a fire ax we found out back."

That's certainly not any better-but I hope it helps you get an idea of what I mean.

Sure, we all knew we were going to die, but we were going to go down fighting. For every one of us that got killed, we wanted two to go down with us. There ended up being about a hundred of us in the end, all of us holed up in a school building. At that point, all we could really do was hope to God that they couldn’t get in. So what were they?

Okay this is a nonsequitor to me. It feels out of order. I'd consider really rearranging the story so that immediately we get the location.

"As she looked out from the windows of the school one last time, she grinned. This would be one hell of a fight. The [insert bugger name here] would be in for one hell of a shock. They'd fight with everything they had-a rag tag bunch, no more than a hundred, armed with a few rifles, some handguns, a fire axe they'd found on the firts floor of the school, and some odds and ends. Hell a few people had busted off the ends of mops and brooms, working the wood on the stone floor to make the ends sharpened..."

We don’t know.

I'd slice this right out, and give the description when they attack.

They were big fuckers, about 7 feet tall, with oversized features and only one nostril. They had thick bodies, with clearly defined chest and abdominal muscles, but with a sort of exoskeleton protecting it all. Their arms were ridiculously muscular. They looked like they were competitors for a “who has the biggest body and looks best while greased up and wearing a Speedo” contest. Their legs were strangely horse-like to the ankles, with kangaroo-like feet instead of hooves. They were fast, and they could literally tear you limb from limb in about the time it takes to pull the wings off a fly.

Except for the competitors line this is gold to me. I can really see it. I'd switch out the competitors line with something like:

"Their uniforms fit like a second skin-their outrageously muscled physiques dwarfing even the biggest body builders."

Keep it simple in my opinion.

They were at a slight disadvantage though. It was the dead of winter, freezing cold. All they had were their bug-like bodies to keep them warm. We had the comforts of the school- heat, running water, electricity, and one crazy janitor who helped us out a lot. He even helped us build barricades and weld over anything the creatures could get in through.

Instead of the first sentence I'd try something along these lines:

"Not everything was weighted in their favor though..."

Not like it mattered.

Dec 6:

So far, we’re holding pretty strong. 3 days ago, we were forced to seek shelter in this school. The town had just begun evac when we got here, and some of the more stubborn people were still sticking around. Like the janitor we found here. Mickey, he told us, was his name, and he wouldn’t leave until his job was done.

This seems out of order, also the first paragraph didn't have a date. If the date is essential, I would think you'd need to be consistent with it.

He was a very interesting fellow, at first. He was squirrelly and hid any time we would come near him. Yesterday, the medic got a hold of him and found out why Mickey was so screwy. He had been a test subject – willingly, of course – for a new medication that was eventually deemed unsafe. As it turned out, a few weeks after you stopped taking the meds, your body went through many hormonal changes. With the right antibiotics, people could recover fully in a matter of days, but Mickey somehow missed that memo.
He never got the memo on the evac, either. The poor bastard didn’t even know what was going on. Now he would be fighting for his life along with us. We were lucky enough to have been trained in military tactics, and unlucky enough to have had experience with these…whatever they were.

Since I am reviewing this as I go, I should hope Mickey plays a big role later on. You just gave him two paragraphs of build up! :)

Six days ago, we came into contact with these things. There were eighteen of us. Now there are ten. Joey, Kristy, Shawn, Brienne, Damien, Elizabeth, Taylor, Devon, James, and I are the survivors. Clearly, it was hard on us to see our friends die one by one in front of us. But it was harder when Enyara was killed. Enya was our leader, an Amazon-looking woman with nerves of steel and a tough-as-nails exterior. When she was ripped apart, it was catastrophic. Now, Joey’s our leader, and Taylor and Devon are playing medic.
I work with Jim on communication and recon work, though we mainly stick to comm. Kris and Shawn are our weapon smiths, building and repairing, using that which they’ve scavenged. Brie, Damien, and Liza are what are left of our fighters. Liza also specializes in working with people. She speaks just about every language imaginable.

Not to romanticize it or anything, but the situation could have been worse. We still have half of our team, and we’re in a warm, relatively safe building. Those of us that are left in the building are like family…well, excluding Mickey. I guess I understand it. I mean, we’ve all been fighting for our lives, so the fact that Joey and Kris don’t trust him is reasonable, I guess. I don’t personally believe in it, but they just won’t let him be alone. Someone’s always charged with babysitting the slightly neurotic custodian.

Taylor and Devon seem to be getting cozy since we got here. Apparently, they had gone to the school together, and even though they weren’t friends then, they’re getting all nostalgic. It’s kind of making me sick. I wouldn’t begrudge them love or anything, but they’re our medics. If something happens to one of them, we need the other to be able to hold it together and not get all emotional. I can see that happening – if one of them gets hurt or killed, the other one’s going to end up falling to pieces. Sometimes people say that I have a sixth --

I hate interrupting myself, but there’s trouble. They’re trying to get in.

Yeah this seems like a seperate story with in the story. I'd make this either a prequel chapter or a seperate one.

I'd say you need to sort out the timeline-maybe write it down, and then present either in a linear fashion- taking us through each day, or discarding the dates-which I am not sure play a real whole lot of a big role in this.

We can get the sense of urgency and time from the story, so unless the dates matter, they just sort of distract me.

Hope any of this helps. I enjoyed reading it.

[Kitt]

Thanks for the input. I need to explain it a little better.

Written out in Word, it's easier to understand. The dated part is a diary entry, as most of the story will be. It's in a different font (Monotype Corsiva, in fact) and makes a very different feel.
The first part is supposed to be in the past tense, as she's reflecting on her diary. Clearly, they did get out alive, or at least she did, but she's conveying the emotions that they felt there.
I used "opponents" because the main characters have no fecking clue what these things are, other than things trying to kill them.
As far as the weapons list goes, yes, she is a bit shell shocked. In fact, later on, she goes into a state where the only things that make sense are, "Ooh look, pretty shiny buttons." And even that won't make sense. She'll eventually pull out of it to a point, but she'll still be kind of stunned by everything that went down. As far as I understand, this happens a lot with people traumatized in any way.
The sentence that begins "There ended up being..." needs to be changed, you're right. It's supposed to be a new paragraph, and needs to be worded differently. I'll work on that.
I wanted "We don't know." to show just how helpless and confused the people were.
I hear you on the body-builder line. I added it in to break up the intensity a little. I don't know about anyone else, but I find that if I read something that's completely intense or completely sad, grim, or what have you, it makes my head sad. I need something to break it up so it isn't overwhelming. Unfortunately, this makes for an issue, as the creatures really aren't wearing anything. They're sorta like Predator + Alien + Bug (from Starship Troopers) + Random Earth Creature #1. I'll work on that.
Somewhere around the 10th day that the main character (who is still nameless) writes in her diary, Mickey will become exceedingly important. I can't wait to get there.
As for the time line, like I said, it's a diary, and, when seen with the alternating fonts, will be easier to read. Anything that the main character is writing at the time is in Monotype Corsiva, and anything she's writing as a review of her own writing is in Tahoma. You would be surprised how much of a difference it makes.

Thanks again for your review. I'll have to go back and change a few things, and I'll keep your other suggestions in mind for later on. I'll have an entire kiddy birthday party tomorrow to work on the story, so it could be fun. (Have I mentioned that I dislike my family?)

By the way, anything that I personally write that isn't an actual part of the manuscript will be in red.

[Serious Paul]

I'll be following this then, to see how it progresses.

[Reika]

Since Paul hit the issues I saw (mainly phrasing) I'll just pipe up with that I'll keep my eye out for the continuation of this story since it sounds interesting. I liked the bodybuilder sentence, but it seemed a bit like a run on sentence.

[sinsual]

Death was upon us.

You have been reading Steve Perry and the Matador series haven't you It reads pretty good, as Reika pointed out Paul pretty much hit it all.

[Angel]

I agree on the sorting out of the timeline, but other than that I have no suggestions, well.. one, write more!

[Kitt]

Death was upon us.

You have been reading Steve Perry and the Matador series haven't you It reads pretty good, as Reika pointed out Paul pretty much hit it all.

Er...I actually have no idea what series that is...

And I've written a TON more, I just have to type it. Damnable schools frowning upon laptops...Damnable mothers frowning on them more...Damnable teachers knowing when I'm using my palm pilot for things other than notes...