Senior Community Manager
I know that not many people read for fun anymore, but I have written a book and would like to share a FREE excerpt from it with the forums cause you guys, yes even FireStar, have a modicum of cool. This is not a piece that is integral to the story other than as a way to slightly get to know one of the characters a little better.
A few of you (Oski, Dosto, lespritdelescal, and GameScrub) have all read at LEAST this far. It's not the best part, but it's one that people seem to enjoy.
Please leave feedback if you can force your way through it. Please DON'T say "I couldn't be bothered to read it", if you don't want to, then that's cool, but posting that you don't have time is wasting MORE of your time.
That "time" stuff is valuable!
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He crouched with his back to the rock, the sunlight glaring into his eyes when he looked up from the dust and the sand under his feet. He checked his ammo and inserted the magazine back into his rifle.
Six rounds left.
If he couldn't end this with six rounds, then it wouldn't matter. He didn't have the time to scour the war-torn, sand-filled, waste-land, for any more ammo, or for a different weapon. He felt for the two grenades on his belt, surprised that they were still there.
It was this or nothing.
"Hostiles suspected to be taking refuge in structure on North-Western edge of canyon, over." He said into his radio again, and was still met with nothing but silence. They had gone quiet only minutes ago, but he feared the worst. Anything could happen in battle in seconds. Minutes were a luxury he didn't have. He had seen his prey come across the desert, but, their footprints were invisible in the sand.
He checked his ammo again.
Still just the six rounds.
"**** it." he muttered.
He steadied his breath and ran as fast as possible, in his combat armor and gear, across the sand dunes to the only building in the area and watched as his enemies entered through a ground floor door. He pulled up and crouched over to present the lowest profile possible, but they had already entered the building. He had caught sight of what he was tracking, he knew it was up to him, and only him, as he was still receiving absolute silence from his compatriots.
He crouch walked around the building, hoping like hell he was avoiding any sensors that might normally pick him out. Moving maddeningly slow he saw that a section of the wall had been blown away by an explosion in some previous battle. The hole opened into a hall on the second floor. He started in, praying that the tell-tale clinks from his boots wouldn't be heard by those inside. He came into a hallway, now out of the harsh light from outside he could see across the hall to arches that would serve him as windows to the rest of the complex. He inched his way to one of the arches and glanced down. Fifteen feet below him were the soldiers he had seen enter the building.
There were four of them. One with a large, cylindrical, anti-vehicle rocket launcher resting on his shoulder, two with field battle rifles much like his, and the fourth....
Well, the fourth was carrying a bomb.
He held his breath while trying to come up with some sort of a plan. He would have to try to take them out one at a time with well timed and well placed shots. If anyone was left standing, he would use the shadows around them to attack from behind.
It was a long shot, but it would have to work.
He couldn't fail.
He was about to move when he heard the roar of an approaching vehicle. Oh bullocks, he thought, Just what I don't need. He was astonished when his squad came barreling in the ground entrance, rifles belching fire and spewing lead at their enemies.
His astonishment was not shared by the soldier with the rocket launcher. The man never hesitated, he smoothly lined up his shot, and depressed the trigger, a trail of flame ending on the ground precisely in the middle of his three squad members, their limp bodies bounced off of the walls before hitting the floor.
Rage flared inside of him then. He silently pulled the pins out of his last two grenades and rolled them across the floor, where they fell out of the archway towards the men below. They landed with a clank, and two of the men looked up, each catching a burst of rounds and going down hard a split second before the grenades went off. A third was standing right where the grenades had gone off, the smoke clearing quickly around his inert body.
Where's the fourth? he mutely screamed to himself.
He caught movement in the shadows and in an instant had his shot lined up. The other warrior's head perfectly in his sights. A slight smile spread his on his lips as his finger squeezed the trigger. He had a perfect sight-picture, there was no way he was going to miss.
His smile fell as the firing pin failed to hit the rounds that were not in his rifle.
"Damn!" he yelled as he twisted behind the supports of the arches, fully expecting bullets to be tearing into the concrete and rock around him.
There was no gunfire, only silence. He was steeling himself to look back out of the arches when a sound made his heart fall. It was a clinking sound. A metal on rock sound.
It was a grenade sound.
He threw himself out of the hallway and down the fifteen feet of air between his hiding spot and the floor, now littered with the dead. An alarm was going off in his armor, a high-pitched keening that made him want to rip off his helmet. He quickly got to his feet and tossed aside his gun, grabbing one of the rifles from the floor.
He heard a scream behind him and turned to see a man rushing towards him. He had time to squeeze the trigger once and saw sparks as the rounds glanced off of the side of his enemy's helmet. He squeezed again.
Empty.
With nothing left to do, no options left to take, no other course of action, he relied on instinct and swung the butt of the rifle into the other man's neck, resulting in a satisfyingly sickening crunch.
Followed closely by an explosion.
*****************************
"You idiot! All you have to do is stand by the bomb to disarm it! Why worry about..........."
Samuel ripped the headset away from his head, cutting off the words and painfully pinching his ear and successfully ripping his black baseball cap off of his head. His dark brown eyes were home to a gaze that he felt might burn the sun so heated and filled with fury as he was.
Samuel threw his headset and controller onto the floor by the television, hitting the button on his remote that turned everything off.
"I need a cigarette." he said to no one in particular, grabbing a black hooded sweatshirt. "Be back when I get back."
The reason that no one answered was that he lived alone. He walked out his front door, and didn't bother to lock it behind him. If asked, his mother would say that this behavior was stupid. But no one bothered to ask her.
The End.... FOR NOW! *Insert Evil Laugh*
Ok, there it is. I hope you guys enjoy it. It SHOULD be finished soon. I think. I keep proof reading and revising. The main story has been done for probably 2 years.
Senior Member
I remember this one! Are you going to try and get it published?
Senior Community Manager
I think I'll be using the Barnes & Noble tools to publish as an eBook through B&N.com.
I don't want to list it until I am happy with it, but I fear that I will never really be happy and will always find something wrong.
Senior Member
I was halfway through it and got caught up with some ********. Need to go back and re-read it.
Senior Member
I didn't see that coming at all. Very cool
Senior Community Manager
I need a co-author on this one. Someone who can do real descriptions. When I see a scene in my head it's all there in perfect detail. Writing down those details is the part that gives me problems.Originally Posted by GameScrub
The characters here actually destroyed my original plot. I came to parts that I had outlined and thought "he wouldn't do that" or "she would say this instead" and it made it more difficult.
I am actually working on a second book. This one has zombies and isn't a romantic/action/comedy aimed at "young adults". There is some gore and some bigger philosophical questions than the ones present in the book that I pulled the above excerpt from.
Would you believe that I got the idea while watching a buddy play Halo? He was so into the game that he acted like he was really the character. After playing he said "Dude, did you see how I jumped over them and took out the rocket guy and then the other 2? I'm badass".Originally Posted by NytmairI didn't see that coming at all. Very cool
Thanks for reading the long post guys.
Haha looks really cool so far, didnt expect he was just playing a game:P
Senior Community Manager
Shhhh... That's the point.
Senior Member
My thoughts in chronological order:
I don´t like books about war.
Hm, but it´s written pretty good.
Haha, nice one, he got me.
Well, I think he should be commentator for ESL.
We'll be friends again if you apologize for calling me a pseudo-novelist, and you had better mean it. I wouldn't care if someone like ChicagoAJ called me that, but since it came from you, it was the highest insult I could have received.
