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| Image via Amanda McCrohan |
Title: Meet Me at the Morgue
Genre: YA Fantasy Horror
Plot type: Quest
Setting: Modern High School and Medieval
Setup:
Our main character, Buffy, is 17 years old. She is in band, plays the tuba, (i.e., has some muscles :)), is smart, pretty in a Sandra Bullock girl-next-door kind of way. Her mother died ten years ago of an unspecified disease for which there is no cure, and she has been raised by her father.
Our love interest and villain(ish), Tristan, works in the morgue, which is the family business. He is 18, and in a misguided attempt to save people, pushes those with the disease through one of two portals which his family has guarded for generations. One portal is located in one of the refrigerator drawers at the morgue, and the other is locker number 47 at the high school. Believing that the modern bacteria that caused the disease wouldn't survive the journey through the portal (why?) he sends people through, not knowing that the time period on the other side is full of leprosy and leprous zombies, including zombie dragons.
When Buffy goes through the portal (how? why?) he goes after her.
Obviously, there are a lot of questions in this set up. But it has the potential to be very fun! So take off with it, folks. Give us a story (or hopefully lots of stories) that will plug the holes and tell us what happens next. What does Tristan do to save Buffy? What does she do to save herself? Who's the Big Bad? And what happens when Buffy and Tristan start to have feelings for each other, but she realizes HE is the reason they are stuck in the awful time period in which they find themselves?
WRITE IT! : )
Have fun!
Hello, everyone! My daughter Savannah & I wrote about three pages together last night and finished it up this afternoon. I sent it to Kimberley via Facebook because the blog only allows 4,000 characters at a time & I'm having technical difficulties today. We had so much fun! Thank you for coming to Tryon. It was lovely to meet you all!
ReplyDeleteAmanda McCrohan
Hi Amanda, it was great to meet you, too! Yesterday was crazy because it was launch day for Kimberley, but I'll try to have her put it up today or at least get her to send it to me so that I can put it up. Eager to see what you've done!
ReplyDeleteHere's what Kimberley just forwarded to me as written by Amanda:
ReplyDeleteMEET ME AT THE MORGUE (Amanda McCrohan and Savannah Devine)
It was the second time in under a week that Buffy had caught the strange boy with the piercing blue eyes staring her way. They’d had several classes together since the seventh grade and he’d never paid any attention to her before. But that wasn’t surprising. Boys didn’t pay attention to Buffy. She wasn’t a cheerleader or the class president, like her best friend, Gwyn. Not to say that she was homely. She was quite beautiful in a girl-next-door kind of way with long, dark hair that flowed past the middle of her back, deep brown eyes framed by thick, black lashes and a dancer’s build. She was also an honors student and played the tuba in the marching band.
The hall monitor chimed the bells and Buffy was the first one to leave class. She passed a group of spastic minstrel singers and tried to rush past them before they started to sing. She absolutely loathed singing of all kinds. Plus, the school’s minstrel choir was the worst. Always out of key, their songs didn’t even rhyme. Dressed head-to-toe in green, the group of rowdy boys and girls started to dance in the hallway and make up a song about her.
“Buffy! Oh, sweet Buffy with the tubaaaaa!”
“Cut it out!” she shouted, shooting them an angry glare. “Buffy and tuba don’t even rhyme! You guys are horrible minstrels.”
“Bufffffy! Ohhhh, Buffffy… your tuba is shiny and loud!”
“Quit it!” She swatted at them. “Go away!”
Luckily, Mrs. Archer, the seventh grade English teacher walked out of her classroom and they began to follow her around and left Buffy to her own devices. She glanced over her shoulder. The boy kept his distance. He followed a few feet behind and continued to stare at her in the most peculiar manner. She shuffled her feet and gripped her books, chewing on her lower lip until it hurt. Once she reached her locker, she put in the combination and shifted her feet from side to side. His locker was right next to hers. She grabbed a notebook and slammed it shut, only to find him standing inches from her face.
She gasped.
“Oh! Hi, Tristan.”
He didn’t respond. He just looked her up and down and flashed a smirk.
He stood in the hallway and continued to stare at her. She swallowed hard and licked her lips. She stared down at her chest. Nope. Still flat. She reminded herself to have a very long discussion with her fairy godmother in regards to granting wishes.
Nothing to see here, folks.
She didn’t understand why he kept staring at her. Nobody ever stared at her, at least not in that way. In fact, the last time someone stared at her for anything at all, it was her band director, Mrs. Goudy. Mrs. Goudy had a permanent scowl on her face, especially when it came to Buffy. After all, Buffy was the one who tripped and broke the expensive new drum the Friends of the Band had donated. She also stumbled over a flag left on the field by the Color Guard and simultaneously knocked over all three vats of Gatorade on the hottest day of the year. The last one was the kicker. Distracted by a tiny fairy, Buffy lost her balance and landed—tuba and all—on an unfortunate clarinet player. Mrs. Goudy actually considered kicking Buffy out of the band, was it not for the fact that she was the only tuba player they had. The accident sent the poor boy straight to the hospital for a fractured pelvis. That was fun trying to explain to her father.
Buffy did her best to blend in and not cause any trouble. The last thing Buffy wanted to do was irk the staff and end up in the principal’s office. The students didn’t get normal punishments like writing out sentences one-hundred times or staying after school to recite Chaucer or even a stern lecture. At Oliver Cromwell High School, they took punishment seriously. Punishment was distributed quickly and ruthlessly.
Continued from Amanda's story:
ReplyDeleteThere was the Square of Humiliation. A student would be tied up in the middle of the quad and people would walk by and taunt them or, at times, throw rotten eggs at them. That was the least severe punishment at O.C.H.S. If a student really screwed up, the principal would send them straight to the dungeon to await torture via The Rack or Iron Maiden. So, as you see, royally peeving off the staff and administration was something you just didn’t do.
Buffy rounded the corner of the castle and neared her locker. She passed the cheerleaders, who were over by the drinking fountains, showing off their latest cheers and flirting with the jousting team. Buffy glanced over her shoulder again.
Tristan was still following her.
This whole new, look at Buffy thing was a surprising new development in her life. Boys just didn’t pay attention to her. At least, not the way they did with the more popular girls. Buffy was clumsy and nerdy. She was outspoken, tutored the “C-” and below crowd in Biology class, and stayed at home most nights. She preferred hanging out with her three cats she’d named after the Periodic Table of Elements. Cobalt, the Russian Blue cat, was her favorite, although she’d never let the twins, Copper and Zinc, know any differently.
Buffy started to make her way towards the cafeteria, but Tristan moved in front of her and blocked the way.
“Umm… excuse me,” she said. “Can you please move?”
He said nothing. He stood over her and crossed his arms. Although he gave her the creeps, she was also strangely attracted to him. Tristan was handsome in a very dark and brooding sort of way. He towered her by nearly a foot and had dark hair that dusted the tops of his shoulders. He wore dark jeans and a white t-shirt that showed off his muscular arms. Being a tuba player, she often noticed people’s arms. His were strong and toned. She was impressed.
Must be from lifting all of those dead bodies, she mused.
Buffy tried to walk past Tristan, but he grabbed her arm and swung her towards the lockers. Her back smacked the metal and she squirmed.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me!”
Tristan leaned in and whispered, “Meet me at the morgue tonight. Midnight.” His hot breath skimmed her cheek. He smelled of musk and formaldehyde.
“What? The morgue?” She sucked in a deep breath. “Why? What do you want from me?” She wriggled out of his grasp.
“Just come,” he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. He chuckled in a way that made her hair stand on end and then walked away.
Continued from Amanda's story:
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell?
Before Buffy could respond, her best friend, Gwyn came up from behind her.
“Boo!” she shouted.
Buffy jumped, smacked her funny bone on the locker, and dropped her books. She sighed, leaned over and picked them back up. She cringed as her tightly knotted corset pinched her sides.
“Gwyn! You suck.”
Gwyn leaned down to help her, narrowed her blue eyes and scrutinized Buffy’s face.
“Geez, Buff, why so jumpy today? And what’s up with Morgue Boy? I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak.”
Buffy shrugged.
“I don’t know. He’s weird. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay. Suit yourself!” said Gwyn. She linked arms with Buffy’s. “C’mon, we’re late for lunch. Today’s mutton day in the cafeteria. Yum.”
“I’m vegetarian this week.”
“Again?” Gwyn let out a deep sigh, blowing her wispy cornsilk bangs into the air. “Buff, that never works out for you. There aren’t any fresh vegetables in season right now and they’ve stopped serving fish because it’s the Queen’s favorite and she has put a ban on public fishing.” She sucked in a deep breath. “You’re going to end up with gruel.”
Buffy shrugged. “I’d rather eat gruel than kill a poor innocent sheep, thank you very much.”
Buffy’s best friend, Gwyn, played the flute in the marching band. There was something more graceful about the flute versus the tuba. While Buffy was known for tripping her own feet, Gwyn was known for her grace. Gwyn was tall, blonde and strutted the aisles of school as though it were one, big catwalk. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Stonegate, were loaded and she had the best designer-made corsets in the entire kingdom. It helped that her mother was the BFF of the infamous corset designer, Lady Godiva.
Buffy’s thoughts immediately drifted to those of Tristan. Why was he talking to her now? She was nobody.
After filling up on a giant bowl of guiltless gruel, Buffy made her way to Algebra class.
Tristan sat in the back of the classroom. She took a seat in the middle of the room and did her best to avoid him. He never spoke up in class unless the teacher prodded him to do so. Like Buffy, he didn’t have many friends and wasn’t one of the popular boys. Tristan’s family owned their small town’s only funeral home and his father was the county coroner. The morgue was located in their basement, of all places. His father, Arthur, gave Buffy the creeps. At nearly seven feet tall and bald, yet with the same piercing blue eyes as his son, many people avoided their family altogether. She didn’t know if it was because of the whole “we live in a funeral home” thing or “we cut up dead bodies for a living thing,” but instead of being turned off by it all, she found herself fascinated by Tristan’s home life. She wondered what it was like to live in such a place. Curiosity ended up getting the best of her.
After class, she followed him to his locker. He smiled when he saw her.
“Midnight,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
He said nothing. He simply nodded, turned around and walked away.