The Z Word

[Dog Food]

Entry #1

The house was empty. No signs of a struggle. There were only two beams of light, and they flashed carefully over every and all artifacts that the house contained. The two men holding the flashlights stepped silently across the wooden floors, wincing at each groan of the floorboards. It was an agonizing ten minutes for them to creep up the stairs and once or twice they both stopped, unmoving, holding their breath, and listening... But as soon as they froze, they came back to life and moved on.

On a whole, their mission seemed rather dull and uneventful - save for their strange behavior. It wasn't until one of the flashlights glittered over something white that one of them spoke.

"Ike, get over here," one of the men said. The other appeared in the doorway a few moments later, his light shining on the first's face. He had a clean mustache and shaved chin, tall and large with plenty of muscle. He picked up a large, calloused hand and put it over his face, shielding it from the light. "Stop that," he grunted, "and get over here."

"Alright, alright," said Ike, amused. "What have you got?"

"Piece of paper," he said, reaching over to pick it up. But Ike was faster and scooped it into his hands. He brushed off the dust and peered down at it, unable to see in the darkness. The other man shone his light, briefly illuminating Ike's face. While the first guy was big, strong and gruff, Ike was smaller and skinnier. His hair was a little more wild, his eyes shone with the prospects of adventure, and he looked as though he was fresh out of high school.

"Thanks, Mike," Ike said with a grin. With the paper now covered in light, Ike began to read out loud:

[spoiler][/spoiler]

When Ike had finished, he looked down at Mike with excitement.

"A lead!" he exclaimed, holding up the paper and shaking it as if it was the winning lottery ticket.

"What's the date?" Mike asked, sounding less enthused.

"September... The sixth!" Ike said. "And today's... It's the..."

"Eleventh."

"So we're close! Someone else is out there, she-"

"She could be dead by now." Ike's face fell. His hand with the paper dropped to his side, and there was a light thumping sound as something else fell to the ground. This time, Mike picked it up. "The clippings," he said.

"That could have some information," Ike said hopefully.

Mike read them silently, then passed them over to Ike, who took the cue to read silently as well.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

"Page 3C," Ike muttered when he was done, flipping the newspaper clippings over but finding nothing else.

"It's not there."

"Oh. I guess it was good for background reading..."

"Sure, but who cares about this Danny Deum guy? It cuts off at the part with the vital info."

"We wanted to find out what was going on, didn't we? Well, this is a start."

"I guess," said Mike with a shrug. "Still, if we had page 3C..."

"That girl," Ike said suddenly, "it sounds like she knows about this stuff. And she only left a few days ago. It says right here to find her."

"What, you want to go after her?" Mike asked, his eyebrows raised.

"It's the best lead we've got, isn't it?"

"She didn't tell us much. The next town over... it's not like there's only one choice," Mike said.

"She must have left clues. She was talking about leaving breadcrumbs."

"We don't even know where to start-"

"The next town over. So we'll look at one of the next towns over," Ike said, ending rather lamely.

"Listen, kid. We don't have nine lives to go wasting chasing some girl that probably didn't make it a mile on her own! Living with her mom and dad? She had to have been just a child. We should just stick to the plan."

"The plan? Wasn't the plan to find some sign of life other than us? And look, we found some! Someone is inviting us to find them and suddenly you've got cold feet? Besides, I'm only nineteen. I'm still new to the whole living alone thing."

Mike sighed and sat on the bed in the room. He shook his head back and forth in deep thought. Ike new this pensive look very well and kept silent, looking anxious.

When at last Mike spoke, it was in a quiet, subdued voice: "Fine."

Ike grinned, but saved his victory exclamation for when Mike had turned away.

"Great! So, we better get going if we want to catch up to-"

"Hold on, hold on. Just because we're tracking this letter-writer doesn't mean we have to go now," Mike said.

"But it's still dark-"

"And there's a nice bed and some food in the pantry here. We'll spend a day here, take anything we may need, and leave tomorrow night."

Ike stared for a minute, thinking. It seemed like the more reasonable plan. Could one more day really hurt? He nodded once, and Mike sighed in relief.

"Good. Well, settle down, boy. You can take this room. I'll go draw all the shades. We should have enough cover to walk about freely in the morning. But remember, be darn quiet! And rest up, we'll have a long way to go tomorrow, seeing as we don't even know which town we want to try."

Mike gave Ike a rough pat on the back and left. Ike yawned. He hadn't slept soundly in a bed in a while... And with the exciting prospect of finding another human being alive out in the world, Ike fell asleep with a smile.

[Kayo]

Waitaminute what's this

Interesting read nonetheless. But of course you had to put such a suspenseful line at the end:

And with the exciting prospect of finding another human being alive out in the world

... O_O

I hope this gets explained eventually.

[Magnum]

Waitaminute what's this
Not Silver's Pancakes, that's what it is.

Interesting read nonetheless. But of course you had to put such a suspenseful line at the end:

... O_O

I hope this gets explained eventually.
What terrible threat to the human kind starts with a Z? Zebras. And a whole intercourse  ton of them!

I feel quite cynical tonight. Pardon the douchbaggery in the post above.

[Kayo]

It's probably a fictional word.

[Magnum]

It's probably a fictional word.

Nope. It's Zebras.

[Kayo]

Nope. It's Zebras.

I think it's Zygomorphous.

[SkyMyl]

All right, where's Slenderman? I know he's going to show up eventually.