Short Story - Corpse of Mars

copyright 2013 by Sean Sherman

March 4, 1866
He was a veteran of the War of Northern Aggression. The Army of Northern Virginia. The war was over, a loss for his adopted state. Now he and his partner traveled across the west, mercenaries and prospectors.

Things had gone poorly when they prospected in Arizona territory. His partner was killed while on a supply run, a victim of the Tonto Apache. After an insane charge into the Apache camp to recover the body he made his way to a cave in what was sacred ground to the natives.

The Apache pursued him in force, but they began to slow as they approached the sacred ground. The shaman urged the warriors forward, they would be forgiven for violating the ground if they dealt with the white-skinned invader.

The Virginian carried his dead friend's body up the path into a cave. He then turned and took cover behind a boulder, awaiting the Apache. Shortly after they arrived a gun fight began.

The defender's only near hit almost killed one of the braves if not for the interdiction of the bullet by a startled bird. The explosion of blood and feathers made it clear to the brave that he was saved, but for what purpose he did not know. Less than a decade later his tribe would be scattered and he would be the partner of a white Texas Ranger turned vigilante.

The white man realized he was doomed. Outnumbered and outgunned with no hope of rescue. He drew a bead on the shaman who was approaching closer to the cave. He then held his fire when he saw the look of terror on the Apache's face. As the shaman fled, the braves followed closely behind him. What had happened? Given that he was still alive there was little reason to be concerned with the details.

Staring up in the sky he could make out a tiny light rising over the horizon. It was a light he knew well. Mars was rising. Mars, the god of war. That other world always had a hold on his imagination. Being a warrior and a mercenary himself he would dream about what life might be like on Earth's neighbor. As exhaustion finally embraced him and he drifted off to sleep his thoughts were of the red planet.

(image from NASA)
Something happened. Something impossible. Suddenly awoken the man found himself transported to the surface of Mars! His body quickly went into agony in the frigid thin air. The liquids of his body began to quickly evaporate in the low pressure of the alien world. Within moments the thick sludge his blood had become could no longer maintain his body's vital functions, but with the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere serviceable blood would have been worthless. His freezing, unseeing eyes never closed as he collapsed as quickly as he had risen his hand clutching a handful of martian dirt.


4 March AD 2429
Marte 1, the first manned mission to Mars, landed on the red planet. Minutes later the hatch opened and a space-suited man, Comandante Mendelez, emerged. After a few brief steps on the alien world the man plants the flag of Sul Aliança into the dirt. Over four centuries of rebuilding and humanity now, officially, had surpassed its former glory.

Flag of Sul Aliança
Mendelez looked around the new world in awe of his surroundings. The other two men of his mission team take their first steps on Mars. Something caught the Comandante's eye. Over behind the rocks.

As he moved around to look at the strange object he swore. His profane language transmitted to nearly every radio and television receiver on Earth minutes later. What he saw defied all logic, the desiccated corpse of a human! Examining the corpse and its possessions it was apparent that it was a man from nineteenth century United States. An impossibility.

It would be a mystery humanity would never be able to solve.

END.

A funny thing happened on the way to my short story

Monday was a good day for me in terms of getting some writing done. The problem was I got inspired to write a short story instead of working on a 5,000 to 30,000 story I need to have written and polished by December 15th.

I did average about 1,000 words an hour and got the rough draft of the story done. The beginning needs a little work. I also have to make sure the foreshadowing in the story works as well as it seemed to as I was speeding along on Monday. I love the way the second half of the 5,000 words turned out..... it's just the first half that is giving me doubts.

The problem was research. Getting inspired late Sunday night as I was dozing off to having a finished draft 24 hours later didn't give me time to do proper research. I'll clean it up as well as I can this week. Hopefully at some point in the future I can interview someone with firsthand knowledge of some of the settings of the story to make it better.

A quick synopsis: A junior congressman gets assigned to the Ways and Means Committee and eventually uncovers a conspiracy. It has a good amount of action. I also personally like the climax and ending of the story.

If I can get it in really good shape I may even try to get it published. Failing that I'll be sure to post it to this blog - or at least post a link to wherever I end up uploading the story.

The Strange Thing About Inspiration
I wasn't planning on writing a short story. As I've said I have another writing project I have to finish over the next month. It's just the idea was so interesting to me and pieces seemed to fall into place I had to write it.

Some authors are asked where they get their ideas. I don't have a shoe box under my bed where I keep them. You just have to learn to recognize the idea for what it is and be willing to experiment.

The story I've finished does have a little bit more behind it. A friend of mine posted something on his Facebook page about some of the things he was planning to read. He mentioned a story by one of my favorite authors. I went to my self and pulled that book and then remembered there were other short stories in it.

I spent the night reading one of them. It was very creative and very well done. It got my mind wandering in some strange directions. Thrown into the mix was an odd concept from a Green Lantern comic I never read from 1985.

The quick bit of research I managed gave me some locations, ideas for interesting situations, and even the name for a supporting character. That same research forced me to change other things about the story. The main character is now from Colorado instead of Arizona.

Other bits came from writing dialog for the characters. You may have something planned when you start a scene but when the characters start talking and interacting with each other you realize something else should happen instead. It may sound silly, but when you are typing away at full speed you don't have time to plan out the dialog and consider the possible responses; your instinct takes over and your characters almost write themselves.

It's tough to get into that zone sometimes, but the results are usually very interesting. Typing away at a scene and not knowing how its going to end until your fingers stop clicking away on the keyboard.

Spirits of the Dead

Here is some writing I did in March 2010 for a local writing contest. I didn't have too much time to write it at the time due to obligations at work so I decided to get a little experimental with it. Ended up getting first place.

SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
By Sean Sherman

The 113th is escorting a squadron of bombers on their return form an attack across the German lines. A swarm of Hun fighters streak down at them from out of the afternoon sun. Bill Maddox watches the incoming enemy. This is going to be his first dogfight as they will have to try to keep the enemy away from the bombers.

The two squadrons clashed, machine guns blazing. Maddox tried to stay with “Mad Dog” Harris, his wingman. An Albatross D.V cut across him several of its bullets cutting into Bill’s craft.

Oil from the damaged engine sprayed into Maddox’s face, covering his goggles.

The sound of machine guns fills the air with a symphony of death.

Scarf up to clean goggles.

Smell of smoke from a nearby burning plane.

Can’t find “Mad Dog.”

Bullets whistle past in the frigid air.

Hun spotted.

Enter kill position.

Shoot.

Miss.

Screams as burning German fighter spirals to the awaiting ground.

Shaken by the close passing of another plane.

More bullets fly past.

Movement at the left.

Turn.

Albatross dead ahead.

Guns jam.

Begin hammering guns.

Strafed by German.

Warm. Blood flowing down arm.

Grazing hit.

Plane streaking past guns screaming after an unseen enemy.

Guns working again.

Circle around.

Enter the melee.

Target acquired.

Fire.

Miss.

Out of control plane on collision course.

Violent dive to the right.

Spinning out of control.

Warmth between legs.

Plane stabilizes.

Climb back up towards fight.

Sudden move from right.

Turn and shoot.

Direct hit.

Black smoke pours out of target.

First kill…

Time nearly stops for Bill. The battle now sounds a hundred miles away. He can almost see the individual bullets casually floating through the air. A puffy black trail being left by his crashing victim. That is when Maddox realizes that he has just found his wingman.

Shock and terror grip Bill as his brain comprehends what he has just done. He looses sight as his wingman goes down across enemy lines. His limbs feel like they weight tons. He can’t force himself to turn and follow Harris down.

As Bill drifted he began to loose too much altitude. Boche anti-aircraft guns open fire. The sounds rattle Bill out of his trance. Before he can climb away his plane is hit by enemy fire. He begins to go down. The engine is destroyed and the little remaining fuel begins to burn.

Maddox manages to pull up the nose and get the extra distance to the British lines. As he makes a rough landing in his burning aeroplane he voids the contents of his stomach onto his controls and legs. As Allied soldiers arrive to help he looses consciousness.

Five days later Bill Maddox was in his quarters near the aerodrome. No one had said anything about what had happened to “Mad Dog.” No one had seen that Bill was the one who shot him down.

His own wounds were superficial and he was due to fly in to-morrow’s dawn patrol. Unfortunately his new obsession with whiskey may cause him to be grounded.

As Bill gets started on the night’s drinking Major Thomas enters the room.

“Major.” Said Bill as he saluted.

“Maddox.” Said the Major as he returned the salute and then seated himself in a nearby chair.

“I know that getting shot down can be a traumatic experience, Bill. If you need a few more days you can have them.”

“Thank you, Sir.” Said Bill as he sipped from the bottle.

“However,” said the Major as he takes the bottle form Bill, “this is hardly going to make you better.”

“It makes the ghosts go away.”

“What ghosts? I wasn’t aware that you’d killed anyone.”

Maddox pulls the whiskey back away from the Major. He takes a long swig from the bottle. “I killed Mad Dog.”

After a along moment passes without any words.

“You didn’t kill him, Bill.”

“Yes I did. I was scarred, confused. I saw a plane and fired. It was Jack. I murdered him.”

“Even if he was dead that wouldn’t be murder. The Huns are responsible not you.”

“If he were dead?”

The Major pulls a telegram out of his pocket and hands it to Maddox. Bill begins to read.

“He’s alive! The Germans have him at a hospital…. They had to amputate his leg.” Maddox stands and begins to pace the room. “It’s all my fault.”

“Nonsense, Maddox. I told you it was the Hun’s fault. Do you think you are the first man to accidentally shoot a buddy?”

“I don’t care if I’m the first. It doesn’t change what I did.”

The Major now stands and places his hand on Bill’s shoulder. “If you want to make things up to Jack I’ll tell you what you can do.”

“Yes… yes, Sir.”

“You can go back up there and bring down two German planes. One to avenge Jack and the other to make up for the one you should have gotten last week.”

“I don’t know. What if I shoot another one of our planes?”

“You won’t. You’ve learned a very important lesson. Besides if you don’t go back up then Jack was shot down for nothing. You owe it to him to take his place in the squadron.”

“Alright. I’ll do it.”

“Do you want to go up with the dawn patrol to-morrow, or do you still need a couple of days?” asked Major Thomas.

“I’ll go with the patrol, sir.”

“Good man.” The Major walks to the door and then turns. “Just so you know it’s not going to be much easier to shoot down a German. Before this war is over you’ll have your fair share of ghosts. The spirits in a bottle can’t make the spirits of the dead go away. You have to take comfort in the fact that with each victory we have the war is that much closer to ending. And then we can put several million spirits to rest.”

Writing Update

I'm planning to enter a short story contest in a couple of weeks. Last week I wrote the first draft of my story coming in at just over 2,000 words and for the contest it has to be under 4,000 so I have room to work with.

For my genre I've chosen science fiction. I also decided to write something that didn't involve alien worlds, spaceships, bug-eyed monsters, or ray guns. Something that I guess would be hard sci-fi. It involves string theory, theology and takes place on an alternate Earth.

I have been lucky enough to have some people in a writing group I belong to available to read the draft. We all shared each others potential entries for the contest in hopes that at least one of us will win something.

Responses for mine were overall positive, but I've got lots of notes to go through to clean up some problems with the story. Luckily I have nearly 2,000 words left available if needed to fix these problems.

Overall I'm happy with how the story is turning out. Maybe I'll even end up winning the contest. I'll let everyone here know if I did when I find out. If I don't I'll post the story on this blog in December or January 2012 for those who are interested.

Random Writings

When times allows I am part of a local writing group. Over a year ago we broke from our usual routine and picked some random news clippings and images and spent about five minutes writing a quick story about them. Below is what I managed to write in the time allotted... didn't keep the scraps and image that was the inspiration:

My favorite place in the world is the amusement park by the sea. Why is it my favorite place? It is where I had performed the marriage of my best friend to his wife while still wearing my hospital gown.

It was a strange few days leading up to that point. On Monday I was driving to work and was thinking about my friend's upcoming wedding and wondering if his new wife had a sister. Music was playing on the radio and I tapped along with it on my steering wheel.

Unfortunately I have terrible rhythm and lost control of the car. I braced for impact and heard metal and plastic crunching as my car collided with a nearby van.

Inside the van were a group of terrorists who were planning mayhem on our fair city. My accidental intervention spoiled their plans.

As they prepared to get their vengeance upon me another person appeared, guns blazing. He wore a tuxedo and had a pistol in one hand and a plastic lawn flamingo in the other. He splattered the brains and innards of my adversaries across the landscape, a single eyeball bouncing down the road leaving little read splotches as it went.

I thanked the man for the rescue but he was totally drunk and fell into the nearby ditch. An envelope fell out of his pocket marked "Ultra Secret."

I opened the envelope... not sure why, but I learned of a terrible plot by an evil organization to take over the world and this drunk with the plastic flamingo was supposed to save the day.

As I decided what to do next the plastic bird began to speak. It was no ordinary lawn ornament but was a talking computer with built-in satellite phone and toaster.

The machine told me the next stop on the mission, a nearby yak breeding farm. From the map that printed out I saw that the farm was located deep in a desolate swamp far from the wandering eyes of civilization.

My car still operated so I proceeded to the swamp wondering what my next move should be. I was not -

(That's where it ended due to the time. We then took turns reading what we had wrote. I never went back to that story until I flipped through an old notebook to-day. Any comments?)

Preparing for 2010 NaNoWriMo

I'm getting ready for this year's National Novel Writing Month. Last year I wasn't successful in my attempt. This year I have some of the same time constraints that I had last year, but I will be trying to take a week of vacation to give me some extra writing time.

Last year I planned to write a retro-science-fiction story set during World War I. This time I'll be writing an adventure story set during the Second Angl0-Afghan War. I did some research last year and I'm currently getting a few characters and scenarios into the back of my mind so I'll be ready to start writing on November 1st.

I'll try to give regular updates of my writing status as the month progresses. The goal for the 30 days is 50,000 words. A sizable amount, but it should be easy to accomplish, even with work and other obligations that need to be met.

This will hopefully be my first successful NaNoWriMo attempt. Last year was my first attempt, and I failed. My other novel in a month attempt was in June 2008 and netted over 40,000 words.

If you've always wanted to write a novel you might want to join me next week in writing. The goal is to get words on a page. Future months can be taken up by the clean-up and re-writes. Once the first 50,000 words are written, everything else is much easier.

Now all I need is a title for my new book...

Back to Work on My 1st Novel

Thunder rumbled in the distance as rain pattered against my window. It had gotten dark since I first sat down in front of my computer to continue my work. The glow from the monitor was all that was giving illumination to the room.

Two years of work would be coming to an end in just a few short months. I sifted through piles of notes to find useful data to update my manuscript. I had received many helpful suggestions from the members of the Rochester Writers Association on parts of my novel. Now I was taking the best of those suggestions and integrating them into my story.

Over 40,000 words had been written in June 2008. I had fallen short of my goal for those thirty days but I knew that my story would be worth completing. Over the two years following that real life began to interfere; large projects at work, other writing, research for another blog.... weeks turned into months and my draft remained uncompleted.

But on that dark and stormy night not too long ago I gathered my notes, printouts, index cards, and source material to begin working to finish that first draft.

Will my draft be ready for publishing when it is completed by this fall? Certainly not! That's why it is called a first draft and not a completed manuscript.

No, instead the draft will be printed and given to a handful of trusted reviewers for further critique. Then comes the next round of updates and re-writes. Perhaps by May 2011, nearly three years from the first word being written, and over four years since research began, will I finally be ready to begin the quest to find an agent.

I would ask for luck, but hard work and stubbornness have usually served me better.

Busy Week

This week has been very busy so far. Hopefully I can manage to take a week off from work in November to work on my next novel project. Right now I'm planning that project, cleaning up last year's novel and preparing for Halloween.

While I generally read history books while at the gym the last few weeks before turning in for the night I've been reading books on writing.... or how not to write to be more accurate. Currently I'm reading Thanks, But This Isn't For Us by Jessica Page Morrell. Books on how to write usually aren't useful to me, but this book is a book on what not to write. Knowing what not to do can be much more useful than what to do. I hope that what I'm learning now will be of great benefit over the next month or so.

Preparing for NaNoWriMo 2009

I have a couple of ideas for novels for the upcoming National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). While I'm still trying to finish the draft of my first novel, which I wrote in June 2008, I want to make sure I participate in NaNoWriMo this year.

I've finally decided on a sort of retro-science fiction story set about 95 years ago. I had some other ideas, but the storylines of those would have been very bizarre with story structures unlike any other books I'm familiar with. It is probably best that I stick with a regular story structure for my first few books.

With the topic of my story determined, I am now preparing an outline so that I'm ready to start writing on November 1st. My current method of outlining a large story is with index cards. By using colored 3x5 cards I can organize the various scenes, characters, and backstory. Different colored cards are used for each category of information. This system has worked quite well for me in the past.

I'll be sure to give regular updates as I continue work on this new novel.