Edmond McCarty's Accident - Chapter One - Eddie's Accident

As you know, I've been mucking about with some Novel writing software, and I'm seeing how useful it is in organising my thoughts and being able to quickly reference ideas I've been playing with. This story I feel is going to be more 'quirky' than funny, so please bear with it as I sort it out. As I haven't decided on themes, morals or even subplots yet, but I figure a lot of the subplotting is already in the ideas the software has come up with. This took about half an hour to write, so isn't bad considering it comes to three double spaced pages, which is almost a proper days work for a writer. lol Oh, I didn't use the Dragon Naturally Speaking Software either, else it might have taken considerably less time. lol I actually have a sore throat from spending a lot of the day training the software to recognise my words. lol Oh well, without further adeiu, here is Edmond McCarty's Accident:

Chapter One

It was a late afternoon, and Jim and Eddie were sitting at the top of dead man's hill. Dead man's hill was a steep hill with a slope of thirty five degrees where most of the local skater kids liked to hang out. At the bottom of dead man's hill there was the tee junction with a vacant block directly opposite the road. The vacant block had many shrubs and bushes. Often Jim and Eddie would skate down the hill and flying across the tee junction and would do somersaults into the bushes. Of course, most of the skater kids would do similar things, but Eddie and Jim felt they were the best at it for no better reason than they were twelve and as such indestructible. The sun hung lazily in the sky as it slowly turned a darker shade of orange and drifted towards a long nights sleep behind the distant hills. The sky turned various shades of purple and red and some clouds drifted lazily in front of the sun. Somewhere in the distance, a lone truck carrying llamas to the local zoo was making its way around the bends of the local hills. It was making its way up Disraeli Drive towards the very intersection that joined onto dead man's hill. The street dead man's hill was on was called Forester Avenue. Most of the other skaters had gone home for dinner or to watch some television. There were only four of them left, Jim, Eddie, some kid named Bob and an older kid they only knew as Slim. Bob and Slim went to the local high school, and though Slim was at least two years older than Bob, they managed to hang out together outside of school. It was rumored that they might be gay, which caused all sorts of problems for them. Eddie did not think Slim could possibly be gay, as he was too manly and did not act effeminate at all. Bob on the other hand had some mystique about him which Eddie could not put his finger on, but it certainly seemed queer. Eddie and Jim were talking about school while sitting on their boards by the side of the road. Eddie was playing with the dirt which had accumulated in the gutter. Jim was talking about some girl named Stephanie whom he had a crush on. They did not notice Slim walk up behind them with Bob, so they were startled when he suddenly spoke. 'I bet you guys can't follow Bob and me down the hill,' Slim said. 'What?' replied Jim half leaping out of his skin. 'Of course we can.' 'Not with the way I have it planned,' continued Slim. 'We head down the hill, do a jump off Old Lady Yamazaki's driveway. Head across the road, over the Nixon's rubbish bin. Onto the footpath and a railslide across the metal railing by the side of the park. Across the road again, off the Lee's drive way and then full bore downhill. Across the road and if you can leap further into bushes than I get, then I'll buy you an ice cream.' 'What if we don't make it as far as you?' Asked Jim. 'Nothing. Not a thing,' said Slim as he leap on his board and headed down the hill. Bob leapt onto his board and followed. Eddie and Jim looked at each other and shrugged. Bob and Slim were taking it easy waiting to see if Eddie and Jim had taken the challenge. They did! Slim smiled to himself and started to push himself faster. All four of them were skateboarding down the road towards the Yamazaki's drive. The Yamazaki's lived a quarter of the way down the hill. Urbano Lombardi was driving his Kenworth up Disraeli Drive. In the back were several llamas in an open topped trailer. He was running a little late, and decided to put his foot down a little. He was going well over the sixty kilometre limit for the area, but he did not want to get to the zoo too late, as they would dock him some pay. He needed the money to pay for his wife, Giovannina's operation. Down the hill they went, Slim, followed by Bob, then Eddie then Jim. Slim did the leap off the drive and one eightied the board around to ride it backwards down the hill. It was called 'going fakie,' and Slim considered himself a bit of an expert at 'going fakie downhill'. He was doing it now to make sure the other guys made the jump. Bob caught a little bit of air off the drive, and Eddie ollied it. Jim took Eddie's lead and also ollied it. Slim went fakie up the Nixon's drive, over the rubbish bin, which Slim had pushed onto it's side earlier that day, and onto the footpath. Bob followed narrowly missing the Nixon's letterbox. Eddie and Jim followed with Eddie trying to do a shoveit, but chickening out just in time not to slam it into the ground. All four did the railslide at the park easily and Slim accelerated across the road. He had flipped the board and did a one eighty off the rails to set himself going forward again. He did a quick turn to leap off the Lee's curb easily. Bob was not so lucky and ended up landing on the Lee's flowerbed and hitting a pink flamingo statue they kept there. Eddie and Jim made the turn and were soon downhilling after Slim as fast as they could. They needed to make up as much speed to throw themselves into the bush as far as they could. They also needed to make sure they found a good bush to land on, otherwise they might land on dirt or hard ground. Normally the ground was soft anyway, as the water from the hill had a habit of running into that block of land. This kept the ground nice and moist, but occasionally, if it had not rained for a while, the ground was considerably hard when landing on it. Slim had picked up considerable speed, and was beginning to cross the tee junction when Urbano and his Kenworth were almost upon him. Urbano's quick reactions caused him to swerve right, but the Kenworth was almost instantly off the road and the whole thing flipped onto it's side catapulting the six llamas across the road. One of the llamas hit Slim killing them both instantly. Another llama hit Eddie sprawling them across the road. Jim, being slightly behind Eddie and Slim, slammed himself into the curb and flung himself across the lawn of old man Fisher. He landed awkwardly and broke both his arms. The noise of the semi-trailer going over scared almost everyone in the neighbourhood and everyone rushed out of their homes to see what had happened. Mark Fisher was one of the first ones out, and immediately phoned for an ambulance. He raced over to help Jim, who was the nearest of the injured boys. Urbano lay unconscious in his Kenworth. A metal stake used to hold up trees had hit him in the head and he was bleeding seriously. Eddie lay in the middle of the road. The llama which had hit him tried to stand up, but was in considerable difficulty. It's front two legs were broken and it was completely dazed. The other five llamas were definitely dead. Eddie's llama was only alive as Eddie had absorbed some of the impact of the crash. Bob stood at the front of the Lee's standing next to Lillian and Kevin. He was in considerable shock and tears welled up in his eyes. Slim could not be seen and Bob did not know at this time that Slim was dead. He only knew that Slim had been hit and was lying somewhere on the vacant block. Bob did not know at this time that Slim was dead. He only knew that Slim had been hit and was lying somewhere on the vacant block.