My novel, which was supposed to have an overlay of humor, has gotten quite heavy. I need to lighten it and I'm at a good place to do it, but I'm running shy on ideas.
My characters are trying to figure out what to do with a body.
A group of people in mostly a depopulated eastern North Carolina rescues a man from a cult. He was going to be sacrificed. He was drugged before the ritual killing, but they do not realize that the drug is toxic. The ritual is a sham. he was going to die anyway.
They escape with him in a minivan. As his breathing grows more labored, they pull off on a dirt road and park by a tobacco barn, where he dies.
There is a tractor there, but no tools, just a bunch of tobacco stakes. They are trying to figure out what to do with the body, including stupid suggestions they won't use. They are respectful people, and one is very religious.
Everything they have in the van is camping gear. They are seven people and a goat.
Any suggestions?
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50,067 / 50,000
Nov 24, 2008 - 10 29
Return the body to the cult with a stick note on the man's forehead saying, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."
60,208 / 50,000
Nov 24, 2008 - 13 02
Thanks.
They can't return after kidnapping the sacrifice, but this is going to be somebody's suggestion.
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Nov 24, 2008 - 16 34
Since they're at a tobacco barn, they try to make a funeral pyre of tobacco, but it burns slow like a cigar and they all just end up coughing and wheezing except one of them smokes so he's just fine because his lungs are used to it.
BP if it turns out it's not actually tobacco and they all end up high.
DBP if they then forget about the body and wander off to find some Cheetos.
Infinite BP if Cheech and Chong show up and get charged with the murder.
Oh wait... this wasn't a dare thread was it?
54,090 / 50,000
Nov 25, 2008 - 22 59
One suggestion could be that they drop him off at a hospital/ funeral home/ police station.That would most likely come from the religious person who would be riddled with guilt. Of course the others would probably not go for it for fear of getting caught.
Maybe they could just leave him in the barn and call it the farmer's problem.
50,201 / 50,000
Nov 26, 2008 - 02 46
Hang him like a scarecrow? They try to build an electrical tower so they can electrocute the dead man and cover up the death?
80,274 / 50,000
Nov 26, 2008 - 11 16
Put the body in the barn and set fire to it?
50,243 / 50,000
Nov 26, 2008 - 12 13
Well, with camping gear, you have a few options.
There's a tent, which they could shroud him with. Not all tents are respectful colors-- this one could be day-glo orange or camouflage. In fact, all the camping gear could be day-glo orange or camouflage, because it was all originally owned by a hunter.
There's a small plastic (day glo orange) trowel, the entirety of their digging tools, which has a blade of no more than 8". It will take them 3 days to dig a grave, but they could do it.
They have matches or a lighter and a tractor. They could empty the tractor's fuel tank and cremate the body. There's a certain hilarity they can have in trying to actually get the fuel out of the tank-- tip the tractor over? Punch a hole in it? Disassemble it? Siphon? They can do the same with the minivan's fuel, but someone should object to that as then they wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Bonus: The tractor is diesel, and unlike gasoline, diesel is not explosive. So they will rig up some really elaborate means for lighting it without explosion, and then the lighting will be like a whiffle. Double bonus? The tractor's diesel fuel has water in it, and the fire goes out before it even leaves scorch marks. Triple bonus: they end up needing the tractor later, and fill the tank with unleaded from the minivan, which, as it turns out, makes diesel engines inoperable.
They have several frame backpacks (day glo orange or camouflage) which can be strapped together to make a sled for hauling the body, or for a sky burial.
They can consider mulching him into tobacco fertilizer. This idea should be rejected as being "just like cannibalism."
During all of their efforts to argue over and then prepare a decent site for the disposal of the remains, the goat is continuously trying to eat the corpse's clothes (which, for absolutely no reason at all, are both day glo orange AND camouflage). The goat is not even dissuaded by the temptation of tobacco stalks-- it's like the guy stuffed his shirt with maple leaves before death. The humans are worried that the goat is actually going to eat the body, and they can argue about whether that counts as cannibalism.
50,319 / 50,000
Nov 30, 2008 - 22 16
There's a tent, which they could shroud him with. Not all tents are respectful colors-- this one could be day-glo orange or camouflage. In fact, all the camping gear could be day-glo orange or camouflage, because it was all originally owned by a hunter.
Actually, with camping gear you could set up the tent in a wooded area, and then put the body inside, sticking things like twinkies and chocolate in his pockets. Everyone knows you have to store your food in barrels in the trees so the bears don't get it...