The High Drama Blogfest!

Welcome to my entry to DL's High Drama Blogfest and thank you DL for holding such a fest with so many possibilities. I urge all to stop by his cool blog Cruising Altitude and read all the other high drama entries!!!!!

I am still working through some plot issues in my own WIP, so I found this bit of fan fiction drama to fit. I wrote the original draft of this piece a couple years ago. It was for my ‘Chapters Series’, a Jericho Fan Fiction. My first multi-chapter anything. The below scene was originally 3,000 words, so it took a bit of editing to get it down around 1,000. That sort of heavy editing of story material was a learning experience all on it’s own, let me tell you. And DL, I am so glad you raised the number to around a 1,ooo. I like to build drama and that takes a few more words.

Now, when I wrote this bit, the show was still on its way to being canceled outside its first season. I made Jake become Sheriff, I had him talking with his dead granddad and father for closure purposes, I paired him with Heather and not Emily (do not get me started), and I made it a point to allow Jake and Heathers characters to grow. (REMINDER: Disclaimer, the show and characters are not mine...)

Months later, the show got another chance but was canceled in its second season (due to bad writing). They did make Jake the Sheriff and had him talk to his dead granddad, but they paired him with Emily and still had him acting like a half cocked gun.

Can ya tell it bothered me?

SO, my entry...


The MC of this story and this scene is Jake Green. He was once a rebel without a cause, but after the apocalypse, he becomes his town’s hero. He had a lot of baggage and in this scene he finally comes to a point where he wants to tell someone. That someone is Heather Lisinski , the town good girl and his love interest. He is telling the story from a hospital bed after once again saving the day through his own sacrifices.

~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~

“Going overseas—it was like nothing I had ever known. If the situation had been better, it would have been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Everything seemed so different. The places I went, the cultures I was submerged in...”

Jake leaned into his hospital bed, leveling his eyes on the emerging moon. It was getting more difficult to look at Heather. He wondered if she would have the same problem with him after his story was told.

“I’d made alot of local contacts in Baghdad. A man named Ahmad was one of our most trusted information peddlers. He was Sunni Tajik, wanted change, wanted peace, or whatever was passing for it. He believed the US could help…”

Jakes eyes narrowed at the moon outside his window.

“I liked him.” Jake finally spoke. “Ahmad had this twinkle in his eyes, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t. Something that made everything else bearable. I think that thing had been his family…” Jake trailed back into silence, thinking of the old widower and his six children; five sons and a girl…

In Jake's silences, Heather watched him. Her lover may as well have been on the moon the way he stared at it now. She felt him distancing himself and all she could do was listen and watch him go.

“We were waiting for our transport back to the airstrip with a group of US officials. Our transport was late—had to change route when fighting intensified on the southern end of the city…”

Thing about waiting, it left time open for situations to go wrong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Fuck!” Jake irritably spat, taking one last drag off his cigarette, snuffing it out in the sand.

Rapid gunfire echoed out over the eastern corner of the city, making the newbie beside him jump. Jake shook his head while eyeing the surrounding buildings with the barrel scope on his riffle; only getting a view of vacant eyed windows and an unsettled feeling that they were not alone.

He’d told Ahmad about the buildings having eyes earlier in the week, when the elder man had invited him to his home. They’d just finished lunch with Ahmad’s extended family before sitting to watch the younger children play ball in the back courtyard.

‘Shadows have eyes here, Jake Green.’ He’d said. ‘Make sure you do not blink.’

“You’ll get use to the sound.” Jake told the newbie without looking away from the buildings on the other side of the square.

“Get use to it!” Freddie raised a questioning brow to his unaffected superior. “When’s that happening?”

Jake smirked while he continued his watch, the sound of gunfire could be heard peppering the air several blocks from their position.

Jake was use to the gunfire. It was as common place to him as birdsong back home. But the sound of explosions still made him hold his gun tighter, his head dip down lower and his feet move.

“Green. Ready to roll. Transport in five.” Jake nodded to his communications officer then shouldered his weapon.

“We’re getting out of Dodge, Freddie.” Jake smirked. “Not a moment too soon.”

Jakes eyes drifted back across the street while he stepped towards the square. Something in the shadows caught his eye once more. It was small and moving quickly.

“Shoma?” Jake yelled in broken Farsi at the approaching form.

“Amal!” He heard Ahmad yell at the small figure and Jake realized it was the old mans daughter. “Amal stop!”

The roar of truck engines could now heard coming through the neighborhood. The girl continued her walk out to meet them in the square.

Amal had not come to see her father, but the men he was helping. Her oldest brother believed this action took honor away from their family. She was told, by doing this—she would be saving her family and her beloved father from great ruin. She was a good, obedient girl.

Jake yelled the girls name, now recognizing her, as the first truck cleared the street corner into the square. She had turned to her father and then to Jake; he would remember those frightened brown eyes for the rest of his days.

Jake followed her wide eyed gaze to the center of her small body and felt his insides burst with a numbing cold when he traced the outline of a bombers belt just under the young girl’s robes.

Jake watched her hand trail down to her side and he felt his gun rise as if in slow motion. Without hesitation, Jake made a choice…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Everyone hit the deck.” Jake’s voice was weak, a lifeless whisper. Heather kept her stunned silence. “None of it—what I had done, hit me till Ahmad ran into the square…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“She would not have done it!” Ahmad’s voice rose in anguish as he cradled his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms. “I could have talked to her—my Amal!”

The old man’s words trailed out into a howl of misery as he tore the belt off his daughters limp form and threw it into the gutter, not caring if it exploded on impact.

Jake stepped closer, but stopped when he could see the girl’s lifeless face when her father layed her small body down to the bloody sand.

“You killed my girl!” The old man yelled.

“I had no choice…!” Jake screamed his only defense, dropping his weapon onto the street.

In that moment the old man charged down upon Jake, brandishing a dagger, consumed in a fathers rage.

“Nooooo!” Jake screamed as another gun shot rang out through the square.

Ahmad stopped within a few feet of Jake, his eyes wide with surprise. His knife fell from his hand. Before he could take another step, he fell dead in the street.

“He was gonna kill ya, Jake!”

“No choice…” Jake fell to his knees in the sand.

Time would pass after that day and he’d wish that Freddie had been a worse shot....

(End of entry but not of story. BTW, Heather didn't turn away after the story.)

And now the muffins...