*slightly edited from original*

Rob had just finished eating a rather stale brain when his mobile rang. He looked at the number. Nick from Admissions.
"Christ Nick, I've just eaten. You know my breakfast time, I can barely move now," he snapped.
"I’m sorry Doctor Hood, but you have to come now. The police have just brought in a delusional patient off the streets.”
“So?”
Nick paused. “His delusion is that he is human.”
“I’ve seen that before. Get someone else to deal with it.”
“No, he told us that he’s human,” Nick said.
““My god....I’ll be there straight away.”

[This message has been edited by Nick T (edited January 07, 2009).]
 

Hi Nick,

Guess who? (hint: check my profile)

I like the first 13 lines except for the one above.

Suggest: "Christ Nick, I've just fed, you know, my schedule. I can barely move, he said.

Note: get rid of the tag "snapped" and put in the comma after know. However, I still have no idea what this line means. I'd love to read the rest when you've finished the story.
 

this reads like a great story to me I would like to read it....not sure if the italisised told is part of the hook ? here? curious but if it's not at issue might be a let down for me///please send ?
 

Sounds cool, I like it. Where is the story? In the zombie that talks? Does he have unfinished business?

If you will permit me, I would like to comment on aesthetic things that may or may not be anything but my own point of view and therefore worthless.

The name Doctor Rob Hood, zombie psychiatrist.

If I read just his name it is Rob Hood, which distracts me from the story because I get visions of Errol Flynn swinging from tree to tree in green tights (not an altogether unpleasant vision, I just wish he and Olivia de Havilland would have switched wardrobes). And if I scan it quickly I read Rob Zombie. Then I get a mysterious headache and an odd urge to read the Navy recruiting adds. Maybe this is just me but I think the story would be best served if the name were something different.
 

The only comment I would make is that it isn't instantly clear that the patient is a zombie and the doctor is a human. What I mean to say is, there is some ambiguity -- when I first read it I thought everyone in the story was a zombie. Then I thought - oh, maybe they're all human.

Actually - after reading again - I'm still unclear as to who's human and who's not. Clarification?

Thanks for your feedback, highly appreciated.

Patrick, the name is a bit of an injoke with an Australian author who loves his zombies. Personally funny, but publicly meaningless, so it can be easily jettisoned.

Andrew, your feedback (and others) is very valuable as obviously there's a fair bit of ambiguity in the 1st 13 that needs to be removed. The setting is basically after the inevitable zombie apocalypse (2012 by my reckoning) where zombies have become the dominant population and humans are the non-intelligent providers of food and new zombies. Dr Rob Hood is a psychiatrist who is a zombie, rather than a psychiatrist of zombies.

Cheers,

Nick

[This message has been edited by Nick T (edited January 08, 2009).]
 

I definitely agree about the inevitable zombie apocalypse. 2012 might be optimistic. Most the people I know are already zombies. Every spend time with an editor?
 

If it's not very gory or strewn with porn, I think I'm up to critique it!