SAFETY IN NUMBERS

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Photo Copyright: Sandra Crook

Here we are this week sitting together near a large columned building. We’ve gathered to discuss our original stories for the week. This is the Friday Fictioneers group. Our hostess for the gathering is the talented and gracious author and artist, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The challenge for each of us this week and every week is to write a story with no more than 100 words, not counting the title. It’s supposed to have a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt for the week. This week’s prompt was provided by Sandra Crook. Thanks, Sandra.

To read the other stories by group members, just click on the link given below, then on the little blue frog in the blue box.

The link for this week’s stories is as follows:

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/5-may-2017/

Genre: Speculative Fiction

Word Count: 100 Words

SAFETY IN NUMBERS by P.S. Joshi

Chand and fifty other Section Ten patrollers stared at the huge crumbling building, its walkway partly covered with pieces of broken masonry.

He thought it must be over two hundred years since the Greatest War. Who could keep count?

Soon they’d have to find a place to spend the night safe from mutants who preyed on wild animals, any lone human they found, or even their own wounded or dying.

Hardened patrollers parked their trucks on cleared parts of the walkway and set up a guard.

Howling started. It wasn’t wild animals. Ravenous, drooling mutants crept from deep caves.

51 thoughts on “SAFETY IN NUMBERS”

    • Thanks, Cindy. I’m pleased you liked the story and found it creepy. I was trying for that. I’m also glad you thought I set the scene well. This is a different genre for me. 🙂 — Suzanne

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    • Thanks, Plaridel. It’ll be a tough fight no doubt. The mutants are desperate. These troops are battle-hardened, though and have survived other attacks. They need to survive until daylight when the mutants will creep back to their caves carrying their dead and wounded who would be better off if left behind. All the mutants have on their side is their numbers. I’m glad you enjoyed the story. 🙂 — Suzanne

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  19. Thanks, Russell. I’m glad you liked the story. I’m sure they outgunned the mutants. The mutants lived a rough life so they may have also outnumbered them. The mutants were just desperate. No one outside a group was safe in that dystopian land though. Humans traveled in armed groups or not at all. —- Suzanne

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    • Thanks, Dawn. I know what you mean. I’m pleased you liked the story. I can write about it but I had to quit watching the TV show “The Walking Dead” even though I knew it wasn’t real. Even my daughter said that show gave her nightmares. 🙂 — Suzanne

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  26. This brought back two memorable movies for me (though “apocalyptic” isn’t my favorite movie genre, by any means):

    I Am Legend (with Will Smith)
    and
    The Road (with Viggo Mortensen)

    Thought I acknowledge its merit and craft, I really wish I’d never seen the latter! But your piece here brought back scenes from both. That means you captured the essence, for sure. Good job!

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    • Thanks, Erik. What a complementary comment writing my little story “captured the essence” of those big movies. I appreciate it I have yet to see The Road but I did see I Am Legend on TV. My son subscribed to Netflix for me so The Road may turn up on there. 🙂 — Suzanne

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      • I Am Legend, for all its loneliness and isolation, ended with hope. Some would say that The Road does as well, but if it’s there, it’s so slight as to be negligible. And some of the scenes (and implied scenes) are so horrific that I felt “off” for about a week afterward. Fair warning. Perhaps you are a braver soul than I.

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