Bit Me: A story of the end of the world
- Thread starter hrgrisso
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ShunZu
member
Chapter 7 Continued
Professor Katz and Kirk Perry were sitting in the lab, discussing Laura’s accident and speculating about the metal object she’d found. They had a portable TV sitting on one of the table tops, volume turned down on a channel that had a news special about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The text bar rolling along the bottom of the screen said that over ten thousand were confirmed dead with many thousands more assumed dead, having a population of over two million people in that area.
“When I talked with Laura on the phone just a little while ago,” Professor Katz told Kirk, “she said that it’s her opinion the metal canister and that scroll that folded flat had something to do with this eruption. She had a dream last night after opening the scroll of the same volcano erupting.”
“Interesting,” Kirk replied. “Did she go in to any more detail about the rest of the icons on the metal scroll?”
The professor shook his head, “She said there were a total of eight squares, each having some sort of diagram on it. One of them, she insists, is Vesuvius. She said Josh actually felt heat on it this morning before they closed it up and left for the campus. She didn’t go in to much more detail on the other diagrams.”
“Do you think she’s right, professor?” Kirk asked.
“Until I actually get to see this thing and inspect it myself, I don’t want to venture a guess. But if Laura’s hunch is right, it would certainly be a most extraordinary archaeological find.”
Kirk agreed, “Absolutely, yes. I think we should go pick it up right now.”
Katz shook his head. “No, we’ll send a car for her tomorrow. She insisted that she’s going to spend the night there and check in on Josh and Katie in the morning. There’s no point in making that run twice.”
Kirk didn’t necessarily agree, but he didn’t argue the point with his professor. Kirk said, “Okay, but I sure am anxious to see it.”
“So am I, so am I,” Katz agreed.
Kirk excused himself and left the lab, taking out his cell phone to make a call when he reached the hallway. The professor turned up the volume on the TV to get an update on the volcano eruption in Italy.
Evening was approaching and Ty was busy working on his Dad’s old International Super-C tractor. It had a six-foot Woods belly mower under it that needed a belt replaced. Ty had been wrestling it for over two hours, with skinned knuckles and a shirt soaked with sweat to show for it. He was losing the battle. The belt, which he found to be exceptionally long and hard to fit, had to come through a series of complicated pulleys to the rear of the tractor. The belt kept slipping and he couldn’t get the adjustments right. He was kicking himself for not watching his Dad replace it a few years before.
To make things worse, the tractor’s battery was dead. It was an original 6-volt system, only good for a few spins of the engine. He walked to the small campus refrigerator at the north end of the barn to get a beer while the battery charger did its job.
He walked into the woods toward the log cabin. He sat down on a fat tree stump that his Dad had intentionally left when clearing the land for the new home a few years before. His Dad had lovingly called it his ‘contemplation stump’, nestled in the woods in the midst of several huge shaggy-bark hickory trees and surrounded by majestic white oaks, each several feet in diameter. He’d set on the ground next to his Dad many times while his father and he discussed important matters of life, such as how pheasant hunting would be this year or whether Reelfoot lake would continue producing the huge bluegill it had for so long.
Ty had set on the stump many times since his return from St. Louis. He agreed with his Dad that this was a very soothing and peaceful spot to sit and think. While he drank his beer, he thought about the lady he had met at the hospital. He remembered her pleasant smile, perfect teeth and dark blue, almost gray, eyes. It was the look in her eyes that had stuck with him.
Even though it had been a brief conversation, he remembered her eyes to be very deep and thoughtful. He considered her to be highly intelligent and compassionate, judging by the way she had been worrying about her students.
He hoped everything worked out for them. He got up from the stump and walked toward the barn, figuring to use the putty knife to scrape the roto-tiller tines to prepare it for work the next day if the garden dried up a little from today’s rain. As he walked out of the timber and turned towards the barn, he looked west. There was a beautiful sunset fixing to happen this evening. There were still heavy clouds in the sky, but with the sun peeking through periodically, it should make a spectacular sunset. He loved watching the sun go down, twilight creep in, and the stars appear so brilliantly as they did this far out in the country. He was sure people in the cities could not appreciate how the stars just seemed to leap out of their jet black background out here.
Professor Katz and Kirk Perry were sitting in the lab, discussing Laura’s accident and speculating about the metal object she’d found. They had a portable TV sitting on one of the table tops, volume turned down on a channel that had a news special about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The text bar rolling along the bottom of the screen said that over ten thousand were confirmed dead with many thousands more assumed dead, having a population of over two million people in that area.
“When I talked with Laura on the phone just a little while ago,” Professor Katz told Kirk, “she said that it’s her opinion the metal canister and that scroll that folded flat had something to do with this eruption. She had a dream last night after opening the scroll of the same volcano erupting.”
“Interesting,” Kirk replied. “Did she go in to any more detail about the rest of the icons on the metal scroll?”
The professor shook his head, “She said there were a total of eight squares, each having some sort of diagram on it. One of them, she insists, is Vesuvius. She said Josh actually felt heat on it this morning before they closed it up and left for the campus. She didn’t go in to much more detail on the other diagrams.”
“Do you think she’s right, professor?” Kirk asked.
“Until I actually get to see this thing and inspect it myself, I don’t want to venture a guess. But if Laura’s hunch is right, it would certainly be a most extraordinary archaeological find.”
Kirk agreed, “Absolutely, yes. I think we should go pick it up right now.”
Katz shook his head. “No, we’ll send a car for her tomorrow. She insisted that she’s going to spend the night there and check in on Josh and Katie in the morning. There’s no point in making that run twice.”
Kirk didn’t necessarily agree, but he didn’t argue the point with his professor. Kirk said, “Okay, but I sure am anxious to see it.”
“So am I, so am I,” Katz agreed.
Kirk excused himself and left the lab, taking out his cell phone to make a call when he reached the hallway. The professor turned up the volume on the TV to get an update on the volcano eruption in Italy.
* * * * *
Evening was approaching and Ty was busy working on his Dad’s old International Super-C tractor. It had a six-foot Woods belly mower under it that needed a belt replaced. Ty had been wrestling it for over two hours, with skinned knuckles and a shirt soaked with sweat to show for it. He was losing the battle. The belt, which he found to be exceptionally long and hard to fit, had to come through a series of complicated pulleys to the rear of the tractor. The belt kept slipping and he couldn’t get the adjustments right. He was kicking himself for not watching his Dad replace it a few years before.
To make things worse, the tractor’s battery was dead. It was an original 6-volt system, only good for a few spins of the engine. He walked to the small campus refrigerator at the north end of the barn to get a beer while the battery charger did its job.
He walked into the woods toward the log cabin. He sat down on a fat tree stump that his Dad had intentionally left when clearing the land for the new home a few years before. His Dad had lovingly called it his ‘contemplation stump’, nestled in the woods in the midst of several huge shaggy-bark hickory trees and surrounded by majestic white oaks, each several feet in diameter. He’d set on the ground next to his Dad many times while his father and he discussed important matters of life, such as how pheasant hunting would be this year or whether Reelfoot lake would continue producing the huge bluegill it had for so long.
Ty had set on the stump many times since his return from St. Louis. He agreed with his Dad that this was a very soothing and peaceful spot to sit and think. While he drank his beer, he thought about the lady he had met at the hospital. He remembered her pleasant smile, perfect teeth and dark blue, almost gray, eyes. It was the look in her eyes that had stuck with him.
Even though it had been a brief conversation, he remembered her eyes to be very deep and thoughtful. He considered her to be highly intelligent and compassionate, judging by the way she had been worrying about her students.
He hoped everything worked out for them. He got up from the stump and walked toward the barn, figuring to use the putty knife to scrape the roto-tiller tines to prepare it for work the next day if the garden dried up a little from today’s rain. As he walked out of the timber and turned towards the barn, he looked west. There was a beautiful sunset fixing to happen this evening. There were still heavy clouds in the sky, but with the sun peeking through periodically, it should make a spectacular sunset. He loved watching the sun go down, twilight creep in, and the stars appear so brilliantly as they did this far out in the country. He was sure people in the cities could not appreciate how the stars just seemed to leap out of their jet black background out here.
* * * * *
ShunZu
member
Chapter 7 Continued
Greenville had only one taxi, and Laura had taken it to the motel after checking in on her students one more time. Her room was small and simple, but clean. She wasn't hungry, still full from the tacos Alice had made her.
Changing into sweat pants and a loose fitting sweatshirt, she planned on making more notes about the scroll tonight. She was so happy just to have electricity in the room. She turned on the desk lamp and carefully laid the canister on the floor. She got out her pen and note pad to review her notes from the evening before. Then, with a little trepidation, she pushed the button on the canister. As before, it opened with a slightly audible hum.
She carefully took out the scroll and put it on the desk. When she touched both corners of the scroll, it unfolded and laid perfectly flat on the desk. Even though she had seen this happen twice now, she was still amazed it could move without a sound and lay so flat with no sign it had ever been rolled up.
She decided to study each icon in detail. She took note of where the icon with Mount Vesuvius was located, top row, third item. Studying the top left icon, looking very closely, she could see what looked like a huge wave. The next icon, between the wave and volcano, looked like a comet. The icon to the right of the volcano she could not make any sense of. It was so tiny in detail, a mass of what looked like birds or bats. She wrote as much as she could describe about each icon on the top row.
Then, focusing on the lower level icons, she again started on the left. She was relatively certain this icon represented Ice. Almost pure white except it had almost microscopic lines in it, forming what looked like cracks. The next icon was unmistakable. War. It almost looked like a tiny photograph of a WW I battlefield. She wished she had a magnifying glass to see it more clearly, but was fairly certain she could make out the vague outline of trenches and dead bodies.
The second-to-last icon was extremely tiny and difficult to see, but she was sure of what she was looking at. The mushroom cloud was unmistakable. The last icon on the lower right corner was larger in comparison to the other icons. Black background, tiny white dots she thought represented stars, and in the middle, a huge meteor.
Laura sat down on the desk chair, stunned. She realized what she was looking at was the very essence of what archeologists and historians had argued about for hundreds of years: cataclysms. She wondered if these were the disasters that had plagued Earth since its beginning.
She wondered who could have designed and built this scroll made of such a strange metal, contained within something that opened without seams being visible. What culture could have done this? In her studies, she had studied literally thousands of hieroglyphics and other forms of writing, but she had never seen anything close to this, its graphics absolutely beautiful.
She wished she knew more about the Bible, because she knew many of the things on the scroll had been written about in it. Plagues, war, floods, cataclysms, are what she thought the Bible discussed in great detail. She knew she had to get the scroll to Katz.
She jumped up from her chair and ran to her purse, opened her cell phone and dialed the professor. It rang, but there was no answer. She left a message for him in voice mail with a brief summary of what she’d discovered by looking at each of the icons more closely.
She returned to the desk, disappointed she hadn’t gotten through to him. She sat on the chair again, to continue where she’d left off the evening before drawing each icon in as much detail as her limited artistic ability allowed. But as the sun went down, it became more and more difficult to see the detail of each icon. It seemed as if the icons themselves changed as the light changed.
She looked at the clock radio next to the bed. This one worked, and she saw it was almost 10:30. Time had flown. She thought she’d only been studying the board for a half-hour or so, when in fact it had been over three hours. She opened and closed her cell phone to check the time. The clock radio wasn’t wrong. She could swear time had somehow been distorted. Laura felt as if she’d lost several hours.
Then she realized fatigue had set in. She’d been so interested in the scroll that she’d forgotten the bump on her head and the nasty headache she’d had all day.
She took off the sweats and went to bed, leaving the scroll and canister where they lay as she turned off the lamp on the nightstand. She glanced at the scroll one final time before closing her eyes. It looked strange in the light coming in from outside. It was as if the neon motel sign bounced an iridescent glow off the scroll. Her last thought before falling into a deep sleep was wondering if she and the scroll had anything to do with today’s eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
End Chapter 7
Greenville had only one taxi, and Laura had taken it to the motel after checking in on her students one more time. Her room was small and simple, but clean. She wasn't hungry, still full from the tacos Alice had made her.
Changing into sweat pants and a loose fitting sweatshirt, she planned on making more notes about the scroll tonight. She was so happy just to have electricity in the room. She turned on the desk lamp and carefully laid the canister on the floor. She got out her pen and note pad to review her notes from the evening before. Then, with a little trepidation, she pushed the button on the canister. As before, it opened with a slightly audible hum.
She carefully took out the scroll and put it on the desk. When she touched both corners of the scroll, it unfolded and laid perfectly flat on the desk. Even though she had seen this happen twice now, she was still amazed it could move without a sound and lay so flat with no sign it had ever been rolled up.
She decided to study each icon in detail. She took note of where the icon with Mount Vesuvius was located, top row, third item. Studying the top left icon, looking very closely, she could see what looked like a huge wave. The next icon, between the wave and volcano, looked like a comet. The icon to the right of the volcano she could not make any sense of. It was so tiny in detail, a mass of what looked like birds or bats. She wrote as much as she could describe about each icon on the top row.
Then, focusing on the lower level icons, she again started on the left. She was relatively certain this icon represented Ice. Almost pure white except it had almost microscopic lines in it, forming what looked like cracks. The next icon was unmistakable. War. It almost looked like a tiny photograph of a WW I battlefield. She wished she had a magnifying glass to see it more clearly, but was fairly certain she could make out the vague outline of trenches and dead bodies.
The second-to-last icon was extremely tiny and difficult to see, but she was sure of what she was looking at. The mushroom cloud was unmistakable. The last icon on the lower right corner was larger in comparison to the other icons. Black background, tiny white dots she thought represented stars, and in the middle, a huge meteor.
Laura sat down on the desk chair, stunned. She realized what she was looking at was the very essence of what archeologists and historians had argued about for hundreds of years: cataclysms. She wondered if these were the disasters that had plagued Earth since its beginning.
She wondered who could have designed and built this scroll made of such a strange metal, contained within something that opened without seams being visible. What culture could have done this? In her studies, she had studied literally thousands of hieroglyphics and other forms of writing, but she had never seen anything close to this, its graphics absolutely beautiful.
She wished she knew more about the Bible, because she knew many of the things on the scroll had been written about in it. Plagues, war, floods, cataclysms, are what she thought the Bible discussed in great detail. She knew she had to get the scroll to Katz.
She jumped up from her chair and ran to her purse, opened her cell phone and dialed the professor. It rang, but there was no answer. She left a message for him in voice mail with a brief summary of what she’d discovered by looking at each of the icons more closely.
She returned to the desk, disappointed she hadn’t gotten through to him. She sat on the chair again, to continue where she’d left off the evening before drawing each icon in as much detail as her limited artistic ability allowed. But as the sun went down, it became more and more difficult to see the detail of each icon. It seemed as if the icons themselves changed as the light changed.
She looked at the clock radio next to the bed. This one worked, and she saw it was almost 10:30. Time had flown. She thought she’d only been studying the board for a half-hour or so, when in fact it had been over three hours. She opened and closed her cell phone to check the time. The clock radio wasn’t wrong. She could swear time had somehow been distorted. Laura felt as if she’d lost several hours.
Then she realized fatigue had set in. She’d been so interested in the scroll that she’d forgotten the bump on her head and the nasty headache she’d had all day.
She took off the sweats and went to bed, leaving the scroll and canister where they lay as she turned off the lamp on the nightstand. She glanced at the scroll one final time before closing her eyes. It looked strange in the light coming in from outside. It was as if the neon motel sign bounced an iridescent glow off the scroll. Her last thought before falling into a deep sleep was wondering if she and the scroll had anything to do with today’s eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
End Chapter 7
ShunZu
member
Didn't mean to hijack. If you'll check messages before the post, there was interest in seeing it in this thread. But let it not be said that I hijack anything. It's easy to save the time and effort used...
Have a nice day.
Hijacked ??
As the original story hasn't been added to since February , I don't consider this a hijacked thread . It's like television . "Bit me:" is the fall line-up and "Cataclysm" is the summer's giving hrgrisso time to finish his .
I hope you'll continue ShunZu .
As the original story hasn't been added to since February , I don't consider this a hijacked thread . It's like television . "Bit me:" is the fall line-up and "Cataclysm" is the summer's giving hrgrisso time to finish his .
I hope you'll continue ShunZu .
ShunZu
member
Thanks, Mitch. As long as nobody else has a problem with continuing, more on the way. I know those of you who read A Matter of Timing are dying to know what happened to Vladimir Korchenko and Ty Massey. Several PM's have asked if they're in the Cataclysm... and the answer is YES... coming up. 
I'll give it a day or so to let anyone else chime in with objections of continuing the post. If none, chapter 8 and more on the way.
Thanks
Just a note to mention the professionally edited version of A Matter of Timing is now available. For those of you who have the first edition, maybe it'll turn out to be like the Dan Marino rookie card that was imperfect and collectors are hot after for that reason. And I was notified that ourdoors.net did a review of it here: http://www.outdoors.net/site/featur...arms&ArticleCode=3622&V=False&SearchTerm=&R=Y
I'll give it a day or so to let anyone else chime in with objections of continuing the post. If none, chapter 8 and more on the way.
Thanks
Just a note to mention the professionally edited version of A Matter of Timing is now available. For those of you who have the first edition, maybe it'll turn out to be like the Dan Marino rookie card that was imperfect and collectors are hot after for that reason.
And I was notified that ourdoors.net did a review of it here: http://www.outdoors.net/site/featur...arms&ArticleCode=3622&V=False&SearchTerm=&R=YEZ CZ75
Member
Either way, my mouse clicks burn very few calories and this is the internet. I can find it either way.
jimmyriggins
Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2008
- Messages
- 4
Oh c'mon jacked thread I think so. Please finish I just found this thread & I can't stand it & you suck
Grow up
And with an attitude like that, jimmyriggins will not be long for THR (See paragraph 4, in this thread: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=370999
"Don't insult people"
_________
ShunZu - I'm sure if hrgrisso were upset with you keeping the Bit Me thread alive in this way he would have told you.
Hypothetically, I suppose you could copy your posts back to your original story thread, and then have the mods delete them here. That would make these few naysayers happy, and let everyone else who missed it the first time have a shot at reading the first story.
And with an attitude like that, jimmyriggins will not be long for THR (See paragraph 4, in this thread: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=370999
"Don't insult people"
_________
ShunZu - I'm sure if hrgrisso were upset with you keeping the Bit Me thread alive in this way he would have told you.
Hypothetically, I suppose you could copy your posts back to your original story thread, and then have the mods delete them here. That would make these few naysayers happy, and let everyone else who missed it the first time have a shot at reading the first story.
ShunZu
member
Just delete it, mods. As soon as the cover graphic work is complete, it's on the way to the publisher anyway. Apologies to those who think it was hijacked. Certainly isn't worth conflict... there's already enough in the world to go around.
larry_minn
Member
I am sad to hear it will not continue. Please realize you can NOT please EVERYONE. You could give everyone who read the story $500 cash and someone would complain. (ok many would) ;(
The story made me happy when I saw new chapters. I enjoyed it a lot. If you want y ou can e-mail PM me chapters. Your choice if you want me to (nit pic) on little things I will do that. (If I can find any)
I kinda know how it feels to do something and have people who CAN'T do what you can will try to break you down/take the joy out of it.
The story made me happy when I saw new chapters. I enjoyed it a lot. If you want y ou can e-mail PM me chapters. Your choice if you want me to (nit pic) on little things I will do that. (If I can find any)
I kinda know how it feels to do something and have people who CAN'T do what you can will try to break you down/take the joy out of it.
Vityaz
Member
I enjoyed the story, I just don't think it's really right to post it on a thread that was started for a different one.
Sam Adams
Member
hrgrisso
Great story - I'm not a zombie fan, but I just couldn't stop reading. Thanks a lot, by the way - I blew a couple of hours at the office. Fortunately, I can work from home and I'll make up the time tonight.
I sincerely hope that the story gets finished. I understand that real life has intruded a lot into your writing of this story, and congrats are certainly in order for the (now not so) new baby.
Please know that your writing is appreciated, and many await the last part of the book.
Great story - I'm not a zombie fan, but I just couldn't stop reading. Thanks a lot, by the way - I blew a couple of hours at the office. Fortunately, I can work from home and I'll make up the time tonight.
I sincerely hope that the story gets finished. I understand that real life has intruded a lot into your writing of this story, and congrats are certainly in order for the (now not so) new baby.
Please know that your writing is appreciated, and many await the last part of the book.
ShunZu
member
At the suggestion of several good folks, The Cataclysm Scroll will be continued in The Matter of Timing thread here:
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=352026&page=1
The copy/paste work begins.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=352026&page=1
The copy/paste work begins.
Aaryq
Member
Take it to APS. I've tried to tell the mods that a zombie thread is no place for THR but in their infinite wisdom, a zombie thread that they like can stay but a zombie thread they don't like can linger on.
MODS! CAN YOU PLEASE PUT UP RULES FOR WHAT ZOMBIE THREADS CAN AND CANNOT HAVE? OR IS IT UP TO WHAT ENTERTAINS YOU.
MODS! CAN YOU PLEASE PUT UP RULES FOR WHAT ZOMBIE THREADS CAN AND CANNOT HAVE? OR IS IT UP TO WHAT ENTERTAINS YOU.
Mandirigma
Member
Aaryq um, whats the deal dude? got some other links or you just venting?
just remember this is a privately owned public forum. we play by their rules or we don't play.
just remember this is a privately owned public forum. we play by their rules or we don't play.
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