Genre – Action/Adventure, Setting – A Moat, Object – Bacon

This was a really difficult weekend for me, and I’m honestly pleased I just managed to finish something and submit it. I thought I’d post it here instead of pretending it doesn’t exist because it ended up being sort of fun and I might want to revise eventually. There are a zillion things I’d do in revision since I ended up submitting a thrown-together draft. One of them is to bring the big fight at the end back to the moat to make sure I’m complying with the setting requirement. Also, I’m not sure yadda-yadda-yaddaing through a battle is really the way to go, though Action/Adventure is definitely not my genre.

Storming The Gates

“You don’t think there are really alligators, do you?” asked Mark. Lena thought about pointing out that ice was forming at the edges, and alligators didn’t do well in New England November temperatures. There were conflicting rumors in the tent city about the gated McMansion subdivision and its supervillain-level security. The grapevine had been dead-on about the electrified fence they’d tunneled under. And now a moat, an honest-to-God moat.

She pulled off her dark clothes and sealed them into a watertight bag. Underneath she wore a wetsuit. She pulled a dive mask over her eyes and adjusted the oxygen tank on her back. “Come on, Mark, one way to find out.” She brandished a knife in one hand and a dive light in the other and led the way.

The sides of the moat were sharply sloped to prevent climbing out, but there were rumors that if a moat existed, it might have an access hatch. Lena and Mark methodically searched, finding it within a half hour. Lena handed Mark the dive light to hold while she worked at the edges with the knife. Had she felt it wiggle? She popped up one corner. Yes! It went dark and she whipped around, dropping the knife in surprise. The dive light was floating gently down, down, down. Motion caught her eye in the gloom. Mark was thrashing around. As she moved closer, Lena saw the dark shape of a shark, maybe five feet long, and it had Mark by the arm. She swam up and punched the shark in the gills. Nothing. Again, harder. This time the shark let go of Mark’s arm. Blood drifted upward from a wound, but she couldn’t tell how bad it was. At least the arm was still on. The shark turned toward them and she punched it right in the nose. Thank you, Shark Week, she thought, as it turned away in confusion.

Lena grabbed Mark by the uninjured arm and started swimming back toward the hatch. Mark clutched at her frantically and she realized his oxygen tank was disconnected. She held her regulator to his mouth to let him breathe as she worked on the panel. At least she’d popped the one corner out before losing her knife. She was running out of breath, and grabbed for the regulator. Mark, panicking, resisted, and she kicked him away, desperate for oxygen. She took deep breaths and handed the regulator back to a calm Mark. She gave a final tug and the panel released. They swam into the hatch, Lena’s lungs nearly bursting. It sloped up quickly, and she fell to her knees gasping when they reached a flat, dry landing. 

“Let’s see that arm,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out her shirt, tearing it into strips. Mark pulled down his wetsuit and held out his arm, which was oozing blood, but at least not spurting. She wrapped it tightly in her makeshift bandages and they quickly changed back into street clothes. She checked the oxygen tanks. “These are worthless for getting back. We may as well leave all this here. This was just supposed to be a reconnaissance mission. Goddamn sharks, Mark.”

“How do we get back out?” He was pale but his eyes still had his patented spark of determination.

“We’ll figure something out later. We have supplies. We can take our time.”

Re-armed with knives from their bags, they crept up the ladder. Lena flung open the trapdoor at the top and rushed into the room, hoping to salvage some element of surprise. It worked. A man sat up in bed and she was on him before he could hit what looked like a panic button. A quick knife thrust and he was still. She looked over at Mark, who had silenced the man’s partner, and listened. Had they made it in undetected?

They crept quietly through the house, but found no one else in residence. “What do you think, 5,000 square feet?” whispered Mark. “For two people. While we’re all crammed in tents with no electricity. It’s obscene.”

Lena walked as if hypnotized toward the huge refrigerator and opened the door. It was crammed with food. “Eggs, and milk, and, oh my god, Mark, bacon!” She hoisted a large package into the air. 

“And we’ve been living on protein bars and mystery cans cooked over an open flame. No wonder they put sharks in the damn moat to keep us out.”

“I’m cooking it,” she said. “You scramble some eggs. A coffee maker! If they catch us, we can die with a hot breakfast in our bellies.”

It was the best meal of their lives. When they couldn’t eat another bite, they searched the house more closely and armed themselves with a stunning array of guns. “Ready for the invasion, they were,” Lena muttered. 

They disabled the house alarm and left through the back door, creeping in the shadows. Mark counted houses while Lena drew a map. The only way out across the moat was a drawbridge. “That’s a no-go,” Mark muttered.

She stopped suddenly at a small power station. “This is where they get their electricity,” she muttered. “We could shut it off, stay up in those trees, and shoot anyone who comes to check it out.”

“If we’re not getting out alive, we may as well take some of them with us.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

The first to investigate came in small groups that were easily picked off and dragged into the trees. Eventually they needed the automatic weapons when the community rushed in force, but they hadn’t been expecting an attack from this direction, and Lena and Mark had chosen a good vantage point. While their foes were armed, they weren’t practiced in their expensive weapons.

As they lowered the drawbridge and prepared to walk back over the moat, Mark took Lena’s hand. “I think I love you,” he said.

“You’re not my type.”