28K Words Later

Note: Thanks to Andy for the title.

Ridiculously, I left myself in a position this year in NaNoWriMo where I needed to write 17,000 words on the final day.

Fortunately for me, I've got a few extra vacation days I have to burn before the year ends, and today was the perfect day because there was no way I was going to be able to write that much if I went into work.

With one hour to spare, I reached 50,093 words.

The problem came about fifteen minutes before that though when I reached about 49,700 words.

I had actually finished the entire story, and I was 300 words short.

It was my first crack at a children's/young adult novel, so I knew it would be shorter than past attempts, but I cursed my ill luck at falling just under the mark. I had to pad it somehow with at least 300 words of filler to reach the finish line.

The obvious solution to this, of course, was a zombie attack.

Please enjoy the last few hundred words of my novel. They will not be included in any draft after tonight. Please keep in mind that I have been writing for awhile and I'm frankly stunned I am not weeping blood from staring at this screen all day.

Some context - the story is about an immigrant family from Germany. One of the characters is named Franz, and he lives on a horseradish farm. That should really be all you need. None of this is about to make any sense anyway.

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Franz walked over the crest of a hill. The world was his to explore now, and he had been traveling for many days.

Never could he have anticipated what he would see on his first trip off the farm to another town.

“Hello there,” he shouted. It looked a nice town and the people approaching seemed like normal, good-hearted folk.

Until Franz realized that one of them was gnawing on a human arm.

“S&*%,” Franz muttered. “I knew it would come to this sooner or later.”

Zombies.

Franz pulled out his 12 gauge. With a click-clack he cocked it.

“Time to do some horseradish farming, m%th$rf&#@ers. And by ‘horseradish farming’, I mean zombie killing.”

Franz charged down the hill, the battle cry of “JIBBLY JIBBLY” spewing from his lips.

Zombies, of course, know no fear. But if they did, they would have feared the sight of Franz and his 12 gauge tumbling down the hill.

Franz gave both barrels of business to the zombie gnawing on the arm. The zombie head exploded in a spray of blood and brains.

“I’m f%&#ing Jackson Pollock,” Franz said, “and I’m here to make some abstract art.”

Three zombies rushed him from the right. He turned and shot the first one clean through the neck, the head landing on the ground and spinning like a dreidel. “Happy Hanukkah,” he cried. He then did a full flip over the head of the second zombie in the group, shooting straight down as he did into the top of the skull of zombie #2. “That’s my Gallagher impression, b%&#h,” he shouted as the head popped like a ripe watermelon.

Franz realized as he landed that he was out of ammo. “Why the hell did I only pack six shells?” he wondered allowed. Then the zombie ate him.

Unfortunately for the zombies, they didn’t know that an elite force of ninja warriors was already on the way.

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I smell a Newbury Award.