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Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Where weird shit hits bizarre fans.

Author

Ryk Brink

Writer, gamer, any other sucker.

GS2 Chaper 21 ‘Some girls are bigger than others’

Hey there,

Not much to say today, mostly been working and being boring haha. Not much writing or wackiness happening right and I haven’t really had time to be bored by the witcher. I watched avengers infinity war yesterday and it was ok I guess. I have no strong feelings about it.

Getting to the end of this Parker book, it’s pretty short but I’m taking my time haha. I dunno I’m not rushing to finish it, as I said before it’s just sort of smaller with less in depth characters than the other books so I’m not like dying to read the next chapters like I usually am. 
It’s pathetic, I look forward to bus journeys and waiting for stuff just so I can read but this one is just a little meh. It’s just not as big in scope, it’s all set in one place and although its an interesting place it just sort of kills the pacing. I kinda thought this one would be like home alone but really bloody but it sort of let me down. His traps were kind of short lived and didn’t do much.

I was hoping the story would actually follow the main villain who I thought Stark had built up quite well and then you’d get to experience the fear of running into Parker’s traps from his perspective a little like the fourth book and how terrified the villain in that book is of Parker *spoilers* so much so he chews a cyanide capsule just seeing his face again.

But they killed off that cool villain character like in the first encounter and then bring in this sort of generic mob boss character who hasn’t been built up at all really and he’s not really doing anything except riding around in a golf cart barking orders at people. I mean yeah it’s realistic that he got killed just by fate but it’s just so anti-climactic because I’d actually grown to like that guy and I wanted to see him and Parker go at in the ring of intelligence and to have him go down at the first hurdle made all that time spent with him seem pointless.

I mean it’s sort of that divide you get between subverted expectations and actually being good. I don’t care if a story is predictable as long as it’s good. I don’t care if my expectations are subverted if I’m disappointed. It’s like last jedi all over again, they spent too much time trying to subvert expectations and do something unexpected than they did actually crafting a decent narrative that made sense and good characters people could identify with.

It’s not a bad book, it’s just not great. Parker, you’re getting soft my old pal, you need to get back in shape, oh yeah also one of my favourite characters gets arrested right at the start so that sucked. Probably never see him again now.

Anyway enough bitching about that, time is getting away from me and it’s too damn hot today, need to attempt some real work today and maybe some spamming since I’m back on facebook, but for how long who knows? I seem to have report snowflakes on my friends list who like to flag me and get me banned for saying only the least edgy things haha.

So we’ll see how that goes.

See you… 

TJ froze making a stupid face. Trying to flip through ten seconds of footage of his pathetic life flashing before his eyes. Lots of him just sitting in his underpants watching anime and jacking it to anime porn. His mom’s smile, and a man he thought he recognised but couldn’t place. A skinny guy with short dark hair in a buttoned shirt with a pocket protector. ‘Who is that guy?’ He said to himself as he stood dumbstruck. Staring into the those glowing spider eyes rolling towards him through the threshing blades.

“TJ!” A faraway voice called out to him and he turned in a dreamy haze before getting knocked hard on his ass. The eyes following him in slow motion as the buzzing of blades moved like a cloud of wasps shredding up the top ice as they passed.

Sunday knocked TJ out of the way. She pushed her bat out in front of her. The force of the movement of this thing wrenching it twisting out of her hands and sending it into the air. It landed with a thudding clink. Lodging a heavy circular saw blade into the ice like it was put there by the lady in the lake herself.

The rolled to a stop and started to come together. A picture was forming as the rounded gauging blades slowed, white hot. Cooling and steaming on the ice. The frame of the thing heaving with unnatural laboured breathing. Which moved mechanically like bellows making a harsh wheezing noise.

It was big, atleast seven foot tall but hunched like it was on all fours. Twelve foot long with a whipping barbed metallic tail. No backlegs, just the tail and the front pronged metallic claws like a birds. It’s head was a squat thing with no neck, some kind of helmet covered in sharp barbed spikes. The entire length of it’s body was covered in these holes with gauged rounded blades like a “Fucking cheesegrater cyborg?” TJ said as he peeled himself over his fat gut to get a good look at that thing. “Seriously?!” He spat as he got to his knee.

For the rest of the chapter head on over to inkitt.

Some girls are bigger than others

Cur Chapter 5 ‘Storm King’

Hey again humanoid creatures,

Back again and this time significantly less lazy, I actually have a chapter of Cur, one I’ve been promising for ages and it’s probably one of my least favourite chapters so far. I mean it’s not bad it’s just not as good as either the chapter before it or after it. It’s sort of a connective tissue chapter, a set up to something else. Just like this spiel is just a set up to an inevitable rant about the witcher haha.
I feel like there’s more I can do with this chapter and I most certainly will in the near future when it comes time to revisit it for editing and what not.

I was thinking of going in to a doctor to get a referral to see if I have aspergers but I’ve been putting it off because I just hate the idea of being a victim or being probed in any way just to have someone write it on a piece of paper. I want to know but I just don’t want to go outside haha. If only it could be done indoors and I could just print my “I’m a retard” certificate and hang it on my wall.

I dunno it’s kind of depessing, feels like I’ve been lying to myself this whole time, promising myself a normal happy life I was never equipped to have. Living like a character from a Lovecraft story (or even Lovecraft himself) and telling myself “One day” maybe eventually I’ll have the things these normal happy people have. I watched a documentary on the plane on the way back about it and it just made me miserable knowing that was out of reach for me.

But in a way it made me feel thankful that I have some good things in my life, even if it’s just the tiny spec of happiness and a future, it’s better than nothing and I can keep living another day.

Well that got heavy fast, quick pivot to the witcher.

The thing I hate most about the witcher is that I love the witcher.

I love the premise of the witcher that was sold to me in the game and also in the very first short story in the book.

It was basically a pulp detective story but fantasy, a little like Solomon Kane. There was very little dialogue, it was stark, gritty, great action. All about a monster hunter tracking down and killing monsters and all the story surrounding it. This is what I thought the books were going to be like.

As a premise that really worked but as a premise it was dropped like a ten tonne weight in the subsequent books. In four books he might have killed maybe three monsters. A book series about a monster slayer who seems completely disinterested in hunting monsters.

The books basically toss the fact he’s a witcher around as a backstory fill like you would if someone was a vietnam vet, simply to signify he’s tough and can handle himself. But he never engages in slaying monsters.

Instead the books are mostly about really boring politics of a really boring war and how disinterested Geralt is about getting involved in said war.

And then it pivots again into being a story about Ciri having prepubescent lesbian sex with an elf. The story just has no grounding, it’s boring and wordy and convoluted and just seems to be going nowhere.

It astonishes me how well CD projekt red took the mantle of the premise and really ran with it. They relegated the boring war into the background where it belongs just to focus on Geralt hunting monsters and then interlaced a plot around it. And also they made the characters more likeable and relate-able on the whole. I can’t say I like or care about any of the characters in the book. Even so Geralt even in the game is sort of a generic bad ass, he’s more fun than he is in the books.
In the books he’s supposed to be like this brooding serous guy but it makes him come off as a weird whiner.
I just think it’s amazing that they took such a dull uninspired series which I’ve come to believe is actually a rip off of the elric series because apparently the guy who wrote the witcher series worked on the marketing for the polish translation of Elric. They took this sort of go nowhere series and they turned it into this conqueror of the games industry.

And I’m just really hoping they can do the same magic with Cyberpunk when they finally release it. I’m hearing really good things about it.

That’s about all.

If you’re on my mailing list the free copies of my stuff went out today so you should have them already, if not, let me know.

See you…

The dying embers of the fire fizzled and cracked and resonated through the cave. The sounds of birds chirping arrogantly outside petered in and rang in the druidess’ pained ears as she lay flat on the cave floor.

 

She forced one eye open and moved her face off the ground, rocks and debris sticking to it. Her face covered in red indentations from the rubble she lay prone on all night. The light that came through the tunnel was unwelcome and unkind and drove sharp slivers of pain to her head and neck.

 

Something dawned on her suddenly; she clutched at her side and felt it wanting. The sword was gone, what little money she had, her wrist too was bare, her magical torque swindled by that damn shape shifter and the ogreous dead man.

 

She rose to a sitting position and thanked the goddess that she was at least still dressed and felt undisturbed. Having thankfully not been violated in her sleep by those vile miscreants she had the bad luck to encounter.

 

The druidess sitting rubbed all the parts of her head that pained her which seemed like all of them. Her head feeling like a pig’s stomach full of broken clay pot that someone had violently shaken.

 

Her senses returned and she could smell the fire and hear a distant soft humming, her feet scraping on the cave floor as she labored to her feet.

 

The old man was still there pottering about, he blinked as he saw the young girl and smiled, she couldn’t tell if that meant he remembered her or not.

 

“Those men that were here?”

 

“Men?” He aped absentmindedly as if the word were foreign to him and lacked all meaning.

 

“The shape shifter and the dead man.”

 

“Dead man?”

 

“The Firbolg” She felt silly even saying it, as if she was playing in to some sort of delusion, the firbolg didn’t exist anymore.

 

“Oh yes” The old man nodded “I remember them; things were peaceful for a time after they were done killing each other.” He laughed. “But that was a long time ago, I’m three thousand years old, did I mention that?” He said ditheringly.

 

She brushed it off again having no time for his fantasy “Do you remember the sword I had?”

 

“Yes, the singing sword of the lesser demon”

 

“Lesser demon what are you talking about?”

 

“Tethra, I think his name was” The old man mused.

 

The girl shook her head sick of playing the old man’s silly games. “Do you know where they went?” She motioned with her hands as she described them. “The tall man and the man with the red hair”

 

He squinted.

 

“The man who can turn into a dog”

 

“Oh the young lad, he came later, his people didn’t last long but they were before even the Firbolg. I was the first on this island though, me and my wife, until I turned into a fish” He waffled on.

 

“Do you know where they went?” She said through tight lips.

 

“Aren’t you some kind of a witch or something? You don’t have a magic potion you can use to find him” The old man laughed.

 

“Hmm I could try scrying for them if I had something of theirs and I knew where I was on a map.” She pinched her chin.

 

“That can be arranged” The old man laughed.

 

 

“I greet you noble assassin, you may know me. Gwenton assistant of Abartach of Slaverghty, Abertach is very sorry he couldn’t meet you in person, but I have been sent in his stead.

 

Cur and the messenger met at a traveller’s camp off the road to Banagher near Lough Derg. A heavily wooded area that sung with the sickly sweet sound of birds chirping and woodpeckers pecking. They sat across from each other, an unkindled fire pit black with the warm ashes of the previous night and stinking with the smell of rotten game.

 

The messenger was a young looking half-blood elf with a ridiculous haircut. The sides of his head shaved but for a floppy quaff of hair that fell in front of his face. His features more rounded than an elf’s but he was taller than that of a dwarf. Thin but trying to compensate by wearing the thick leather armor of a thief weighed down with pockets. He carried the vomitus arrogance of a noble dabbling at thuggery.

 

“I’m no assassin” Cur spat “Assassins kill for pay, I would kill an elf for a hot meal” He grinned wickedly staring at the half elf hungrily.

 

The elf gulped loudly and shrunk behind his leather armor. “Quite” He said trying to laugh it off. “I bring you your reward in silver” He said hoping it would cool tensions that suddenly flared. He reached out his hand with which a large hide pouch dangling from it. The dog at Cur’s side barked at him and Cur ground his teeth.

 

“The woman” Cur growled not looking at the purse.

 

“Ah yes well, Abartach needs you to do one last jo-!” Cur caught him by the wrist and yanked him off his feet and through the fire pit, the bag of silver split and poured out all over the ground. Cur stepped on his chest and pulled his arm up uncomfortably as if he might rip it out of its socket. The last embers of the night before felt through his leathers.

 

The elf completely overpowered groaned vacantly as he lay dazed his head swimming. Silver coins marked with the ulster symbol of the hand on the shield as his pillow, the dog by his ear growling a steady heat rising at his back.

 

“The one before and the one before that were also ‘the last’.” Cur applied more pressure with his foot and the half elf groaned. “I played your games because they amused me, I grow weary of them.”

 

“Abartach!” The half elf gasped as he tried to get more air in his lungs than Cur’s heavy foot would allow “He lied- to you!”

 

“I know” Cur laughed. “What do dwarves do but lie and count coin? And now he sends a boy to meet me.” He held the young man’s hand to his face. “But there’s more?”

 

“Yes, there’s someone who might know!”

 

“Speak!”

 

“There’s a woman who lives in the woods of Tallaght, it might be her.” Cur pressed harder on his chest, the heat at his back now slowly searing and a smell like overcooked beef filled his nostrils. “-Or else she might know where your woman is”

 

“Tallaght?” Cur said it as if he’d said it before.

 

The dog barked and growled at hearing the name.

 

“It’s not far from here, a half a day’s walk no further. You don’t remember it, Abertach sent you there before now. Damn near slaughtered half the village, a plague gripped it after you left and narry a soul remains. As if overnight, only bones now. Some say it’s some bloodsucker’s curse but its utter nonsense. A single monster couldn’t devour a whole village, with no one to tell the tale, it’s not possible. Maybe you did it” The elf spat defiantly.

 

Cur grinned.

 

Cur pressed his back harder into the hot ash and he cried out like a branded calf and foamed at the mouth.

 

“Is that all? Cur asked, the dog teeth flashed in his vision

 

“Yes I swear it!”

 

Cur pulled him still clutching jealously at the envoys hand pulling him closer and breathing heavily into his face. Smiling that malevolent smile.

 

“You are a messenger yes?”

 

“Yes” the messenger replied reticent.

 

“You will take a message back to your master.” Cur grinned wide.

 

“What message?”

 

Cur opened his mouth wide and with a vicious speed he bit off all the messengers’ fingers on one hand.

 

He screamed as jets of white blood sprayed out of the sides of Curs grinning devil mouth.

 

Read the full chapter on Inkiit

Storm King

Coming waves

How can I go on?

So long since I’ve seen her face.

I’m floating away.

The waves gently lap,

I hear your voice in my head.

Then it’s gone again.

Your smile is the sun,

I can’t look at it too long.

I know I shouldn’t.

Gage chapter 11 ‘Heel on the shovel

Good morrow fine folks,

You know I actually got up and started writing this morning haha. Forgetting it’s a blogging day. See I cycle between the two to try and keep them both in regularity, so I do tues/wed/thur blogging and then the other four days writing. Because before I would just write everyday and I would sort of get burnt out and depressed because I felt insular, I felt like it was all for nothing because no one was reading it. But then blogging and spamming and promoting made me feel hollow because I wasn’t creating.

So I thought this system would balance the two, nice regular creation with sometime to check my head space and see if anyone was picking up what I was putting down to mixed reviews haha.

But it was a happy accident because the last few days I’ve felt like I’m getting back in the swing of things, the first two days weren’t so good, second two were stellar. I think a lot due to the heat abating haha. Also part of me wasn’t feeling that part of the story, not that it was bad it was just a lull from the pulse pounding action haha. Now I’m safely back in that and feeling good. I was feeling like it was getting away from me a bit now I feel like I have a handle on it again. It’s coming into shape a little better, I don’t feel like it’s perfect or I’m putting enough world building in.
One thing I actually like about the witcher series is it has a lot of nice ‘fluff’ like stuff that’s irrelevant to the story but adds just a little something. But obviously in my estimation the whole series so far is nothing but fluff.

And not it’s time for another rant about the witcher, I just got done listening to the audiobook for time of contempt and I don’t if I just wasn’t interested enough to hold my attention. Because I listen to audiobooks all the time and do other stuff and I can still be fully absorbed and never miss anything but I feel like it was just a convoluted mess. As apposed to the other books where nothing happens that’s all this book is, a bunch of stuff happening. It’s not really a story.

The story can be summed up as an evil mage sides with the baddies and then they take over and everyone fights. That’s the plot, just add in a metric tonne of pointless dialogue and some mediocre fights in this one actually. And the book just sort of ends after a cringey lesbian sex scene between a fourteen year old girl and an elf.

I know what this author looks like, he’s a fat old polish guy and just imagining him writing this scene makes my skin crawl haha. It was bad, this elf girl like saves her from being raped by a boy only to rape her ‘nicely’???
It was disturbing to say the least, is it as disturbing as child gang bangs in the sewer a la Stephen King? Not really but I’m not in a hurry to read it again.

Short and sweet that rant, I kind of feel obligated to listen to the other books just so I can moan about them now so I might have to subject myself to that. I mean it’s good just for the writing style, I really think as a writer you should read everyday in some way. I usually listen to those books in breaks and then read before bed and when I get up. Almost finished the Parker novels, I’m not getting the stories crossed with the witcher because both their stories are very simple.

A little behind today so I’m gonna do some proofreading and hopefully get another damn chapter of Cur out because I’m running out of shit to post haha.

See you…

I figured Gage wouldn’t travel too far if he was with that old man and all, I mean where could he go? There wasn’t anything for miles, it was just open untamed country. He couldn’t go back to McCrory. If he didn’t just die of thirst or hunger and get covered over by the sand or get carried away by carrion. He would have stopped at this brothel and someone would remember him, how could they forget such a face?

We left the old man barely alive but he was certainly breathing when went on our way. There was no use in killing him I gathered, if he didn’t indeed die of his injuries he was of no great threat to our operation. I wondered as we left him in that state if it would have been more humane to just end his suffering.

The thought troubled me all the way to the brothel. The sun was just coming down by the time we got there but there wasn’t a single lamp lit in the building which seemed unusual.

The edifice was cold and dark but we could hear an odd rummaging sound. And see a little light bobbing in the darkness like an angler fish’s light in the deep darkness. We approached with caution and I called out like a fool before thinking.

“Hello, is anyone there?”

Ryan and the others shushed me angrily as they got off their vehicles and got low and still in the twilight and I saw the spark of a knife leaving it’s sheathe.

There was a long pause, a moment of unbearable silence. The rummaging noise stopped and the lamplight went out and I swallowed standing in the open. Just like in front of the barn awaiting another flash and a roll of thunder but instead I heard a small stuttering voice.

“HHh-hello? Who’s there?”

“Erm, I’m just looking for some service – A place to sleep and some food perhaps”

There was another deathly silence where nothing moved.

“O-ok” The man’s voice said as the lamp came back on. A few moments later a portly middle aged man wearing a smock came out to greet us in the dusk. “Hh-how you are ya?” The man asked.

“Erm we’re just looking for a place to bed down.”

“Ww-we? There’s more of you?”

Ryan and the others rose out of the falling darkness and stood in front of the porch at my back.

“I see” The man said as he moved the lamp around trying to get a good look at the strangers. “Well I hope you like beans, s’all I could find.” He said.

We sat around a table in the dimly lit brothel over meagre plates of luke warm beans not talking a great deal. I looked over in disgust watching Stein sop up bean juice with stale bread, not so much at the sight of it, but the sound. The slurping sopping suckling noise as he bit into the wet bread.

The man who greeted us came over with his lantern and said “How are you folks finding it?”

A few grunts were sent back in answer.

“Fine I said, I was wondering if you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

“Questions?”

“Yes, I was wondering how you came upon this place, how long have you owned it?”

“Oh I don’t own it” The man said shaking the loose skin on his neck. “I stumbled on it just like you did, the place was empty when I got here so I thought there was no harm in camping out here til I move on.”

“I see” I paused feeling a bit of unease creep in but I went on. “Do you know what happened to the people who ran it?”

“I have no idea mister. I used to run the bank over in town until the other day now I’m a wanderer now, trying to find a way out of the valley and this god forsaken nightmare.”

“You said something about a bank?

“You haven’t heard about it? The whole town is going up in smoke!” He sputtered.

“You’re the first person we’ve talked to”

“You mean” He stopped and put his hand on his head and looked shocked and then swallowed. “I was the only one that got out.” He said in a horrifying realisation.

“What in god’s name are you talking about man?”

He swallowed and he said almost like he was reading from an old folk tale. “A great evil has come to Tupelo, the devil himself has come to town with a red right hand and driven the people from their homes. Swept up in a murderous rage. They chased down all the sane people and killed them and maybe more got away but I ran.” He swallowed, his throat sounded dry and sore. “But I looked back and I saw him, the man with the scarred face, he looked at me and I felt the evil in his heart and I knew the end was upon us.”

“The end?”

Read the rest of the chapter here.

Heel on the shovel

Diana After Dark Chapter one ‘Darkly Dreaming’ *remurdered edition.

(posted late because there was a freak storm here that knocked out my internet for a day haha)
Yes I’m this lazy, rather than proof reading and posting another chapter of Cur (of which I have lots of) I’m re-using Diana chapters haha. Ok well they have been fully edited and now I’m going over them again for the final proof read before I submit them so it’s a little different.

This is essentially the final version so it’s a much more polished version than I give the plebs on inkitt haha. And honestly looking at it, it has changed a lot, it’s really grown up with the help of my new editor and I’m really proud of it and really glad I went over it again because some of the formatting was fucking broken from the editing software haha.

I’m just posting the whole chapter because this is not going up on inkitt, this is just a sample. You gotta pay for this haha. Or maybe I’ll give it away for free next year who knows. I really hope I don’t have to.

Feel really shitty today because I missed another day of work and I really really need the money right now. I just fucked up and I feel really fucking frazzled trying to reset my body clock coming back from the holiday. I feel like a zombie only getting the 4/5 hours again so it’ll be a couple of days before it becomes normal again and this fucking heat is not helping. I feel like I’m fucking melting, two fans on me and I feel like a polar bear in an oven.

Maybe I should switch to drinking cold green tea.

Actually fuck it, I’m gonna do that right now brb haha.

*30 minutes later

Well that took longer than I expected.

Not much to report beyond that. I like this Parker book but it’s not really delivering on characters and suspense in the usual way. I like it when Parker is just this unstoppable force like in the first books he’s going against the whole mob and they can’t touch him. Because he’s this one guy who can dissapear and reappear wherever and he has a network of people just like him who’ll help him and the mob is this stalwart force with names and faces and addresses he can find. The third book is when it hits home that really the mob can’t touch him because he’s not a real person with a real name or even a real face by that point he’s already had facial surgery.

Parker basically lives like a ghost and they’re vulnerable because they have houses and families and cars in their names and he can just roll up to their front door and kill them which is exactly what he does. Because nomatter how rich or powerful you are you can still be gotten to if someone knows where you are and wants you bad enough and has the balls to do it.

It’s such a good book, the first three books are so solid. They really inspired me. In regards to Diana and especially LCYE and TOTCB. Just tight tense terse stories with great action.

This one is a little more loose and it’s good but it’s scope is a little small so far and I just feel like Parker is whining and being kind of a bitch. I just feel like he’s getting softer and I don’t like that. I mean in some of the books it’s almost like he’s the bad guy because he’s like this unstoppable monster and most of the books swap to his quarry and they’re fucking terrified of him and you really feel like they’re being stalked by the devil.

In this he’s like a little lost sheep hiding in a barn. It’s different but I like the stories that are about the job, I think this book and the last Stark got a little tired of the same formula and wanted to switch it up but in my opinion if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I want to read a book about a hard as nails master thief planning the ultimate job, it just seems a little bit like Stark is running out of ideas for cool heists so he sets all the book after the heist to get around doing the same things. Which is a good idea to stop the books from getting stale but it’s just a little underwhelming and there isn’t any direct interaction Parker has with another character so there doesn’t really feel like there’s progression or structure or pacing because he’s in this one place the whole book trying to do the same thing.

In the other books he’s moving all over the place talking to different people and doing stuff, this book is just small in it’s scope and I don’t mind that, its fresh for a Parker book but I really hope it goes back to classic Parker in the next book. And the next book is called ‘Plunder squad’ so that sounds promising haha. A cool cast of characters and lots of loot.

It’s literally taken me all day to write this because there was a lovely little storm knocking out my net and power and since I live in the middle of nowhere I just have to wait.

Anyway I’ve waffled enough, must dash.

See you…

My high heels tapped on the wet concrete like anxious teeth clacking. It’s dark, I’m alone. Scared.

It’s a good kind of scared.

A fear of coming waves of something unexplainable, something inevitable.

I’ve felt it building for so long, and now as I walked the street, alone in the dark, it’s all around me like the tropical heat.

I picked up the pace, it’s a neighborhood I didn’t recognize, low slung houses, high fences with glass teeth. Dogs barking in the arid heat of the night. Salsa music played in the distance, muffled shouting in Spanish.

I swam through its want, waded through its need.

It called to me, it’s hunger passed down through what feel like eons. An insatiable hunger. Teeth strain against gums. I tasted blood, and it felt good.

I heard a splash, and it’s my feet hitting a puddle, it watched, and it waited, the hunger growing.

The moon reflected in the puddle, its smile so wide and manic. Those white teeth, sharp and ready, it’s just right. Projected on my back, it filled me with that white pure light. Filled every corner, carried me like I was on strings.

My steps were weightless and without agency, carried by a wave of lustful righteous anger.

His eyes landed on me before I heard his silent voice.

I heard a fluttering of dark angel wings. A leathery tightening inside, as it whispered and laughed, it told me to keep going.

Told me to be patient even though that’s not a word it understands at all.

A cool breeze blew through the little hairs on my neck.

He called to me, and I’m out of it for a second.

A man—but I couldn’t see his face reflected in the glass of a bus stop because of a huge hairline crack down the middle. He walked down the street on my side, toward me.

I saw myself, dressed in my best impression of a hooker from a nineties cop movie in a car window. The fishnets might’ve been a little too on the nose but it seemed to have worked.

 

I caught a big fish after all.

Just the one I wanted.

He called to me again, but I can’t respond now.

My tongue is somewhere far removed, and words seem like pointless frail things.

I kept going with my arms folded like I was cold, when nothing but cool clear clarity and vicious joy washed over me.  Faster now, the puddles and the car windows revealed he was following.

He looked around and kept pace, how far will he go?

I went along a pink stucco wall that seems to stretch on for miles, passing houses all with their curtains drawn tightly, small dirty lawns cluttered with broken children’s toys, dry dying grass.

The shadow inside shifted and wriggled, like a kid in a bean bag chair. So excited, it hissed and tossed, just where it wanted to be, so close.

The man called to me, something crude in Spanish, but I couldn’t react, not yet.

A little further.

My heels clicked louder and faster, almost breaking out into a run, and what do dogs do when someone runs?

They chase of course, and predictably, he’s caught the scent of something he likes.

Me.

I knew him, his name escaped me, and his face seemed familiar but unimportant right now. No eyes, no nose, no mouth, just a blank pale face not unlike the face of the moon.

Maybe I’m giving him too much credit.

Who’s hunting whom after all?

His need is palpable; I’ve watched him. A small petty monster, a dog chasing cars, not sure what he wants until he gets his hands on them. A bottom feeder, a wanton monster with no attempt to hide it, no need. How free he must have felt, not like me at all.

Something inside me called to him but he can’t hear it, he’s just along for the ride.

I moved faster but I’m not out of breath, it’s a humid night with a cool ocean breeze and I felt brisk and tight. I quickly checked in another car window. He still shadowed me.

Good, almost there now. One more block, follow me little rat.

The thing inside shifted like an eel in a glass vial. Happy, tensing and releasing like a balled fist, electric, with terse excitement.

Impending release just over the horizon.

The man is still following, muttering to himself, looking around, he put his hood up..

The streets are dark and desolate, and lined with houses full of people that don’t talk to cops about strange goings on in the dead of night.

That’s why he picked this place, that’s why I picked it too.

A perfect playground for Diana the Dark Dabbler.

The pink stucco wall ended abruptly, and I rounded the corner fast down the back alley of a Chinese restaurant with bars on the windows, breaking line of sight.

Hidden in the shadow of the large smooth square building. The clear black sky overhead.

He made some sort of noise in his throat that somehow I heard.

I kicked off my heels already and tossed them into the open dumpster. It was neatly tucked away, behind a chained metal fence until I came by earlier and freed it.

That dull thudding sound sent the rats circling.

I ducked behind the spot I picked. A pile of cardboard fortune cookie boxes was all I needed.

The odor sent shivers up my spine. Old shell fish, the smell of the ocean, the spray, maggots—refreshing—like smelling salts.

He rounded the corner fast and confused, like he’s the only kid that doesn’t get the magic act at the birthday party.

My lips parted and curved up; my heart beat hard in my chest, can he hear it? Can he hear the wings beating, can he hear the moon’s teeth clacking, feel it’s beaming maniacal smile?

I hope so. He will.

The man looked around, pulled his hood down tighter. All those chemicals rushing, he felt it too, the chase, the thing inside of him that fed on my fear. Got high off that night air, stumbled into my trap.

I took my cellphone out of my purse and dialed the number of the burner I put in the dumpster.

It rang with a mocking eight-bit Mariachi band song.

He heard it, and swung around taking offense at everything.

Stired up that rabbit in head lights feeling. Trapped in a beam of ambivalent bone white moonlight.

It carried me, gave me goose bumps- goose bumps. Teeth chattered, but I’m not cold, not even close, I felt nothing but pure icy potential. The thing inside purred and waited.

He poked open the dumpster with the barrel of a Glock and looked inside.

We waited until he reaches in for the phone. It took the wheel and we fell out of our hiding spot, lithe and ready in a sliver of moonlight. Invisible, invincible, stun gun in hand, as we moved low and slow and sleek toward his back.

I shouldn’t look..

He turned but it’s too late; It pressed the stun gun to his neck and his legs went limp.

We caught him, took the gun out of his hands like a child with a squirt gun. “You’re mine now,” I whispered and heard not my voice but another vibrating just below the surface.

He heard it too, that eternal voice that speaks to both of us.

His heart beat faster but he couldn’t move. I hiked him up and leveraged him into the open dumpster.

The gun held in my hand, my heart sped up, pumped all those good chemicals hard. The Glock bounced and scraped into the gutter from my toss. Can’t risk some little kid picking it up and blowing his face off—that would be tragic.

I climbed into the dumpster.

Diana the Dumpster Diver, c’est moi?

Afraid not.

A dumpster is just a big metal coffin. It can be cleaned and prepped like any other space.  Prepared it I have; it didn’t take that long, a little tape, a little clear plastic. A battery lamp hooked on a loop of duct tape.

Then there was light.

It still didn’t smell great, cramped and hot, with a faint smell of soy sauce. It wasn’t a room at the Cali Hilton but it’d do fine for about the four hours this would take.

Then home and a lot of showers later would let all those good vibrations course through my muscles. Loosening and straightening out all that bad juju that’d been building. Making me tense and not quite myself.

Set up another light, I blocked out a lot of it in that tight space. Made quick work of taping his hands and feet, cutting his clothes away with garden shears. Shaved and buffed out the areas I wanted to work in.

He didn’t know, couldn’t know or feel what was about to happen. What was about to happen?

My tongue touched all of my teeth; I let out a little laugh.

Just had to have gotten the most powerful stun gun they had; he was out like a light, complete reboot.

A quick slap to his face and he made a noise like someone finding a hair in their lingquini and muttered something in Spanish that might’ve have been, “Ten more minutes, Mama.” I suck at Spanish.

Found the bag I’d stashed there. A small black overnight duffel, and I plan to stay the night. Inside, a sharp fillet knife, a scalpel, a razor and a framing hammer. The gangs all here!

The dumpster was cramped but I could move, as well as lay him out flat. The restaurant it was attached to was closed today. So I’d had all the time I needed to make it ready. Then leave my own trash behind in neatly wrapped packages ready to garnish the local landfill.

We slapped my friend again and his eyes opened wide. I taped his mouth shut.

He couldn’t scream muffled Spanish slurs.

We showed him the knife and his eyes darted back to absorb his surroundings.

He may have well been buried six feet under already.

He had to know he was ours.

The man didn’t seem too impressed with the knife, so the framing hammer was the next item in show and tell day. He didn’t like that, not one bit, his eyes got wider, his pupils shrinking.

It seemed like he was getting it.

We breathed out a cool controlled breath and we watched him shrink, his muscles tightened feebly against the tape, his veins popped, we breathed in his fear.

The pretty girl thing might’ve thrown him at first, or maybe it was a prank.

I heard the mirthless tinny laughter inside and I think he heard it, too.

There was no turning back, one step on the dark path was enough.

There would be blood, a lot of blood.

I could almost hear it rushing inside him, that disgusting hot sticky stuff, waiting to come out.

He was mumbling something; I could feel his panic rising. His longing for release reaching up and touching mine. His eyes were talking, he was drooling, his mouth moving.

There was something really important he had to tell me.

I was hungry for anything. I’d been watching him. What he liked, young girls with wide scared eyes looking up at a knife or a gun or a framing hammer. Feeling him on top of them heaving and sweating, then nothing.

He’d killed four in the last month, and it was nothing to sniff at. Mostly prostitutes, because he was an amateur, no procedure, just pure bare need.

A pathetic creature, but I didn’t hate him.

How could I? We were the same, sort of, but more than that, I loved him; he was a brother.

He sputtered.

His eyes tried frantically to reach inside of me and find some small tear. Like some buried motherly instinct would battle the forces of darkness in the dungeons of my deep dreadfulness. Seeing fit to spare him and maybe take him out to lunch..

I was curious, bad form for a cat.

Didn’t like begging, but was ready to hear anything.

He looked up at me after the tape was ripped off. “Diana, you’re gonna be late for school.”

“School?”

“Yes, school.” I heard my aunt’s indignant voice break through the cozy wall of the pillow over my head.

A dream?

How you tease me. I can still hear the laughing, it’s taunts. Me, Dark Dreamless Diana.

I don’t dream, I never dream, it’s just serene blackness every other night, or I don’t remember. I miss the cool crisp void of sleep, the nothingness. What happened to my nothingness? Bring back the void.

Not to say the dream wasn’t, stimulating.

I moved the pillow off my face and started to rend myself of my sopping sheets. I was drenched in a layer of thick cold sweat.

It isn’t the first time, different people, men, women, different places, times.

It seemed like the dreams were getting more frequent and they always end the same way.

Unsatisfying, they always end just before…

Murderus interruptus.

“Didn’t you say you had a test or something today?”

“There’s always a test or a final or a quiz,” I tell my aunt Mary-anne, a fat girl’s name, but she wasn’t fat, not yet anyway.

A soft and pretty woman, not much older than myself. Kind of a hippy dippy sort but a good soul, raised me from an egg to the velociraptor I picture myself as now.

She had that ‘good hair.’ The type that’s long and straight, a deep chocolatey brown she nevertheless always tied back in a tight ponytail for work. Delicate straight features TV pretty people had, but she never really liked to flaunt it with make-up or fancy clothes; I guess it runs in the family.

I’m Diana, the poor orphan, boohoo. My parents died when I was just an innocent tot. Oh woe is me, the poor child, parents taken so young.

Is this a superheroes backstory? Afraid not.

Were they slain by a wicked murderer or super villain? No, not unless the truck that hit them was a Decepticon. A petty car accident robbed me  of any parental love I was owed and cast me as the martyr in my own passion piece.

“Well, that’s school for ya,” she said, she smiled with her hands on her hips as she waited for me to fully ascend my damp throne.

It’s not that I don’t like school; in fact, I love school. All those plastic minds clinging to some form of identity or another. Forming their own sense of self, all those people pretending to be human hoping the shape would stick. I fit right in.

Maybe I’m not very good at this, I feel like I skipped a step. I’m completely hollow inside. It sounds like teen angst, which is an easy way to pigeon-hole it since I am a senior in high school.

But it’s been this way since before I can remember. Since before I could think, I’ve felt nothing.

My aunt tells me, even as a baby I wouldn’t cry or laugh or smile, nothing. Every emotion I fake is for other people. I’ve been forced to become the perfect mirror of every person I’ve ever known, but I’m good at it.

I’m the best.

I trudged my way to the shower, down the hall from my modest bedroom. It’s hot today, it’s always hot in Cali. That’s why I keep my hair short, easy to clean, easy to dry and it looks cute.

What does anyone else’s opinion matter anyway? Only, that’s a lie people tell themselves on occasion. I don’t, I’m not people. Other people’s opinions are all that matters. It’s the glue that binds this world together. Without it, the world would be the perfect clean chaos of my dreams.

The world where that mocking laughter I hear comes from.

Lies we tell others, and the lies we tell ourselves, are what stops this world from falling apart and it’s what keeps me out of a sanatorium. Are there any sanatoriums in Long Beach? Probably some rich kid day spa with Vicodin vending machines that take hundred dollar bills. So Miley Cyrus can clean up for the next time she needs to squeeze her ass inside a rubber glove.

Rubber gloves, was I even wearing gloves in my dream? Need to write that down.

The things that you remember in the shower. Running water stimulates creativity, or some such other new age nonsense. Massages the chakras or stimulates the karma flow, vibrates the mediclorians. I toweled off and wiped the mirror with my hand. Empty blue-green eyes stared back. I made a toothy fake grin, showed those pearly whites. Such a practiced grin, straight out of the Sears catalogue, 1997.

It’s easier for girls I guess, people don’t look too closely at a girls’ smile. As long as it’s there, it’s good enough, a perfect disguise.

The mirror steamed up again, and I’m gone, poof.

The test was easy, done and gone and I was already forgetting what it was about. The dream was growing stronger and taking up more space in my head. All I could think about was that night and the ripple of the plastic wrap.

I looked outside; it was nice day. Every day was a nice day in California, starts to get boring after a while.

University High was the number one ranked public school in Orange County, go Trojans. It looked like a cross between a prison and a high end motel on the outside. Monstrous palm trees swaying behind sturdy chain-link fences. A backdrop of concrete covered in coral white stucco.

It was a standard mix. An even smattering of Hispanic, caucasian and black kids, the motto, ‘Unity through Diversity,’ as supercilious a statement as the American flag outside.

This wasn’t America, this was some place all new, a fantasy island floating in the clouds where all the beautiful people and one or two monsters lived. Every day, I was rubbing elbows with the future career criminals and politicians of the greater California area. Was there a distinction? I felt blessed walking through the halls. A real rainbow family of love and diversity.

I had no idea how my aunt got the money to put me here on a rookie cop’s salary, but we have a don’t ask don’t tell relationship that seemed to be working for us even better as I got older.

She chose the school because the campus tour video gave off a distinct ‘cult vibe’ and the teachers were nice enough. They really went out of their way to pretend they cared, despite fading into the background in Dark Diana’s World.

I wasn’t bad at school, I was too good at it. It’s amazing the pointless facts and figures you can memorize when you don’t have all that teen angst or hormones or any emotions whatsoever clouding your mind. Pure emptiness to fill with whatever the school board wanted. The perfect clean slate.

I made my way to my locker before I realized I forgot to eat breakfast, a common occurrence. But that’s not to say I’m anorexic. I love to eat, but I could never put on much weight, compliments of a super-fast metabolism, must be genetic, or maybe I was a sleep jogger.

Sleep walking?

I hovered in front of my open locker.

Nah.

As soon as I slammed the door shut

Whom was standing behind it? None other than the notorious Wendy Vargas. How cliché.

Another cliché would be that the most popular girl in the school and I would be bitter rivals.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Morning, bestie,” she crooned in her best vocal fry valley girl as she opened her locker.

It might have something to do with my painfully cringe-inducing habit of flattering everyone. A trait I polished like the turd it is. I say things most people with any sense of dignity wouldn’t dare.

Happily, I lack any of those mortal inhibitions; my gag reflex was never there. When your goal is to blend in and make people like you, lacking any shame is pivotal. So I can tell everyone everything they want to hear and keep a straight face while I do it.

Funny, it’s not even that hard. I can usually tell at first meeting someone what they want to hear. No one even bothers to hide it, they might as well write it on a sign around their necks.

Wendy’s locker being next to mine also tipped the scales of fate. I can’t remember exactly how we met or became friends but I assume proximity is what allowed me to use my powers of butt-kissing to full effect.

Maybe I just complimented her on how she opened her locker. How she applied her lip-gloss in the mirror she had inside the door, or some other banal little detail I’d felt wasn’t worth the storage in my head.

“Looking sexy as always, my love. Wendy Vargas, when will you marry me?” I say in a perfect mocking impression of her voice; she will of course ignore that, and only hear the compliment.

“Thank you, my dear but you know as well as I do, I’m taken and I am a one-woman man,” she said, as she pursed her snake-bitten lips.

She was a beautiful golden goddess one might expect to see in some Spanish soap opera, with a set of expressions just as fake. Heir to a fortune in Cuban sandwich shops. Head of the cheerleading squad, of course, but also a strange passion for ‘nerdy stuff,’ as she called it. Mostly kitsch nerdsploitation, like The Big Bang Theory. Big lens less glasses, wearing comic book superhero T-shirts and pretending to like the new Star Wars movies.

It was all an act so she could rule over a hoard of thirsty geeks in the AV club who’d do whatever she said.

I still have no idea why she likes me. I really could’ve slipped right through the cracks right where I wanted to, if it wasn’t for her.

It might be because I’m the only one in the state that knows she poisoned her stepfather with anti-freeze, and framed her mother.

Did she tell me? Not in so many words. I wasn’t an accomplice or anything, either. Poison’s not my style.

That’s such a ‘girly’ way to kill someone, and I’d never stoop so low as to kill for money. No, a passion is best left free, like all the good things in life.

She didn’t confess to me, but something did. That little voice, that little clawing thing that rolled around deep inside the dark depths of Diana.

It could smell it on her, not her guilt, not her shame, her complete indifference. She had a monster too, a dark secret, but it was a small and covetous thing, a greedy opportunistic monster.

“Where’s that handsome new beau of yours?” I enquired.

Wendy’s new boyfriend was some chad from out of state, what was his name? Bradie? Brodie? Brodo?

She tends to go through them quickly, but this new one had peaked her interest. He was a transplant from Miami, very exotic.

“He’s off collecting that order of red cups and plates for prom.”

“I sense, we’re about get down to business.” I winked.

“You’re senses are keen, as always, my young padawan,” Wendy bowed with her hands pressed together, like she was going to Kung-fu me.

“I learned from the best, master.” I dipped my head.

“I need you to print off some fliers for me.” She smiled, like she was doing me a favor, her arms swaying at her sides, as her voice rose at the end.

Wendy was head of the prom committee, they put on the senior prom every year, and this time it was our turn.

I, Diana, sweetness and light, am on the prom committee, too. All because it would’ve been too strange for me not to, being best friends with the head of the committee. Oh, sweet nepotism.

Part of the practice of being normal was doing things ‘normal’ girls do. I’m not a cheerleader, that was too much for even me to stomach, some things truly are beyond even me. I can’t remember how I got out of that one, must’ve made up something about having one leg longer than the other or something, extreme corns perhaps.

Cheerleading is also surprisingly time consuming, all those pep rallies and practices and incessant parties. Which could prove a problem for my other ‘interests’. I looked around at the fliers already up around the hall. They were on almost every locker, and bulletin board and classroom door. I cast sparring glances at people who don’t need to make conscious efforts to be normal. What blissful cow-like expressions they all had.

“What’s wrong with the old fliers?” I asked in a robotic fashion, but I already knew exactly what she was going to say.

“They’re old,” Wendy shook her head like it was obvious; which it was.

“Okay,” I said without argument, because, what a waste of time and energy that would be.

She sucked her lips like she was tasting her cherry lip gloss and she liked it, then looked over my head. “Oh, there’s a sight for sour eyes.”

I looked over my shoulder, and stage left appeared my stalwart boyfriend Paul.

An ordinary name for an ever so ordinary boyfriend. He was practically perfect in every way, the male Mary Poppins of University high. Tall, but not too tall, smart, but not too smart, conventionally handsome but not too conventionally handsome.

He was into sports, basketball mostly. An army brat through and through, his dad was almost always away on maneuvers.

If I was painfully honest, I mainly liked him for his car, and for the places he was willing to take me in said motor vehicle. I had my license already, but no car of my own.

My aunt was sort of an eco-nut, forcing me to take the bus when possible and if she did buy me a car, with the no money she had saved. It would end up being one just like her work car. One of those terrible eco-bubble little hair dryers powered by happy thoughts and bunny farts.

Did I mention his dad was deployed most of the time? So if I ever did go visit we had the run of the house, and from time to time, his gun cabinet.

His mom was a mystery I didn’t care to explore. Seemed like a sore subject I had no interest in. Sobs stories are no fun, unless they’re your own.

Most of all, I liked him because he was normal. Painfully normal, bone achingly, teeth rattlingly normal. So much so, just being around him made me feel normal by osmosis. Like he absorbed some of my weird into himself and excreted it as a form of non-toxic handsome. He was kryptonite to my superman. Paul is the perfect disguise.

His upbringing, one of strict discipline had forced him to become the perfect gentleman. Thus, his urges were dutifully restrained, not unlike my own.

I really have no interest in sex. I have no hang ups about it either, we’ve had sex.

Honestly didn’t much care for it, a sweaty messy thing, waste of time and sheets. The smell of it was enough to keep him by my side, and to drive me where I wanted to go and do most of anything I wanted.

Being a woman is pretty easy when you have no shame. Anyone that says different is a liar.

Men will put up with almost any shit from a woman if he thinks sex may possibly happen at some point in the near future.

Paul was presentable, neat and clean and always smelled good, never a blond hair out of place, or a blue eye in the wrong direction. A stern solid posture always maintained for some hidden watcher like someone stuck a broom up his ass without any KY and expected him to clean the ceiling.

The perfect scarecrow he was, scaring off all those hangers-on and beta orbiters that like to cling to pretty girls who don’t carry mace on a key chain.

The bell rang, and Wendy looked up, as if to make sure. “Shit, gotta get back to class, see you guys later.” She said as she vocal fried her way down the hall. Swished and swayed spreading a sweet fake scent as she floated away.

“Hey, baby, what’s up?” Paul said.

He speaks! He Leaned in for a hello peck, his arms wrapped around me.

I dutifully resisted, pushed back against him. “Hunger,” I said, without a hint of irony.

Well I wonder…

When you close your eyes.

Do you hear me when you sleep?

I know that can’t be.

Am I even real.

Do you see me when we pass?

Please keep me in mind.

I hoarsely cry, why?

Gasping, dying but somehow,

Still alive, but why?

GS2 Chapter 20 ‘Execute them’

Hello hello hello,

After what seems like a long absence I have returned from my journey feeling sort of refreshed and a little depressed. It’s really draining knowing that every minute that goes by something is taking your further and further away from the people you love the most and you have no choice but to let it take you.

It’s like being in prison but you’re let out once a year for a week if you’re lucky but here I am now in my own private prison writing weird shit and playing too many video games for someone about to be thirty.

Also I might have aspergers which makes a lot of sense and in a lot of ways is a relief because I always knew there was something not quite right about me. I always felt like I was missing an essential piece of the human puzzle. I thought it just related to never knowing my father, for the longest time I was sure I was some type of just straight up psychopath/sociopath who was just too lazy to be a serial killer haha. But this makes a lot more sense.

So I might be going to the doctor but I don’t really want to as I’ve also been self diagnosed with procrastinitus, a severe case and it’s not like my brain is going anywhere.

So what’s new with me? I watched a really interesting bollywood movie on the plane about toilets and then another on the way back not about toilets and I enjoyed them both. I seem to like bollywood movies for some reason, they’re equal parts shock and awe spectacle meets actual entertainment and story. I like them unironically, even a three hour movie about someone trying to help his wife to not poo in a field. I just found it hilarious haha. I think indians have a great sense of humor about themselves and in general and their stories are fun and their romances aren’t too smoltzy, they’re nice and chased and sweet. It’s not all about sex and drugs and weird shit. A part from the pooing in the fields thing.

Didn’t get much writing done though of late, just been trying to reset my sleep schedule back to the polyphasic, so been really tired and it’s still hot as ever here. But I got some done and I did a few haikus on the plane and bus and train.

Today I think I’m going to actually read my excerpt pitch for Diana in the dark like I’ve been saying I’ll do for weeks now, because it’s getting near the time I actually might be pitching it. I’m in line to get some money together for more editing so I can get that done.

Oh yeah and I hate the witcher haha. They should change the name of the books to the ‘waffler’ because that’s all anyone does. Just waffling on about nonsense then the action breezes past and is gone for more waffling about nonsense. None of the characters are likeable and interesting but everyone is fascinated by Geralt because he’s the least boring character in the book. But honestly I don’t see what others see in him. He’s really rather dull, he’s just a wishy washy character too scared of his own shadow or self righteous to really take a position on anything and I feel like he’s a poor stand in for the writer who has just boring normie political views/takes on everything. I really just can’t pay attention to it, it doesn’t grab me at all.

Anyway must dash, work to be done.

Shit I think I’m running out of pictures of green haired chicks haha.

See you..

Scraping scratching sound. Grit and the soles of shoes on concrete sidewalks. Kat rose from her face flat position dazed on the ground picking grit out of the indents they’d made in her face. Spitting it out of her mouth. She stumbled forward tripping over her own feet stepping on something soft.

“Ow” A dull voice under her said.

Kat touched her nose and her hand came up with a little bit of blood and she started to well up.

“You’re standing on my hand” Roch screeched looking up at Kat.

“Bitch fuck you, I think my nose is broken!” Kat snapped back as she went through her purse to find a mirror “Had enough of your shi-“.

She was cut off by Roch pulling her feet out from under her. She crumpled to the ground softening her fall with her hands. Flipping over to kick and flail at Roch as she climbed Kat. Hitting her balled fist at any soft target she could find on the way.

By the time she was all the way on top of her they were in a full scale hissy fit. Biting and dull soft angry punches. Hair pulling and scratching and salty language all over the show. Only then interrupted by a screeching groaning sound of metal twisting and bending. They both turned around to find the source of the noise and the quickly growing shadow. As the turned over truck was turned over again right on top of them. Making a popping squelching peanut butter jelly sandwich getting sat on noise. Squeezing out dark red and black blood, spreading underneath the side of the truck.

A light repetitive tinny tapping sound as the small automatic fired inside the truck. punctuated by shotgun blasts punching the sides. A giant monstrous fist tore through the side of the van reaching deep inside. Wrenching the shotgun out of Carpenter’s greasy mitts and snapping it like kindling. Shaking the truck again like a gorilla in a cage made of tinfoil.

Carpenter pulling his head back to avoid it’s gargantuan grip. Coming in within a hairs breadth of his scraggly beard hair. The freakish thing angered by it’s arm length. It started to peel the metal from the side of the truck trying to make the hole bigger.

Jaclyn’s eyes fluttered in her head as consciousness came back. She was lying on her front, the laptop lying on a heap of debris in front of her on the side of the truck which was now the floor.

The screen was flashing and making alert noises like a popup, she crawled towards it. The screen was flashing the words “Launch signal ‘Yes or no’” flashing in red and orange.

Her body felt like a wrung out washcloth, it wasn’t moving right. She strained to pick her weight up onto her elbows and pull herself towards her laptop. She reached out, her breathing laboured, a pain in her side forcing her to collapse onto her face. She spat and breathed out as the stabbing pain robbed her of a breath. Determined, she started to crawl along like a slug using her chin and one arm to propel her along the floor. Her other hand keeping her ribs from shifting, groaning and hissing as she progressed.

With a noticeable effort she pressed enter. The signal launched with a cheesy nineties matrix loading screen.

A video started to play, a fat girl with green hair doing ridiculous dances in front of a webcam. “What the hell is this? This isn’t what we recorded.” It was Juanita twerking and falling over and pulling a dresser onto herself. She stood gasping, then smiled as if she meant to do that.

A bad jump cut later and she was looking into the camera, her face made up like Marilyn Monroe. “I’m Juanita Horker, the new feminist face of Zombie Surivor. I raised a half a million dollars from some beta orbiters on twitter to come here and kill Sunday. And become the new star you deserve, a more inclusive, gender queer plus size zombie killer”.

“Fucking bitc-!“ Her voice became a harsh rasping empty thing. She was interrupted by a tight bursting metal noise. She looked back to see what looked like a silver weathervain sticking out of her back.

A wrenching metal sigh and a slick unplugging as the lance came out of her back. It disappeared through the hole it made in the side of the truck.

The freakish hand of Garylynn retracted suddenly. Carpenter looked over at the Frenchman clicking the now empty mach ten at the wall of the truck panting. Carpenter smiled and signalled with his head.

“Out” The mechanical voice said.

They left the truck feeling like they’d been in there for days. Covering their eyes from the sun, coming out the bus like kids caught playing hookie.

The monstrous thing in front of the truck was just stood there breathing. Seething quietly looking up at the top of the truck.

The Lancer stood above them watching with those smiling eyes. He watched as the Frenchman and Carpenter got out.

“The other one too”

Carpenter let out a breathy laugh and went back into the truck. The silence punctuated by the sound of fumbling and reluctant muffled shouting. Carpenter strained as he lifted the chair Murray was tied to over the stairs. Making a clacking noise as the wheels hit the metal and concrete.

“Can you just untie me?” Murray shouted moving the gag out of his mouth.

“Nah” Carpenter said as he wheeled him out.

“You!” The Lancer pointed at the Frenchman, Carpenter and Murray. They all stopped dead and pointed at their chests like ‘Who me?’

The lancer turned to look away from them and at the opponent he’d picked in their stead. “You can go”.

Check out the rest of the chapter here.

Execute them!

Home on the range

Parting tears my heart

You don’t even know I’m gone

What a strange feeling.

The further I get,

My emptiness grows and grows,

Until nothings left.

The sun is shining,

Of course, but I pray for rain.

To let these tears go.

Gage Chapter 10 ‘Something must break’

Hey there,

What’s up? rhetorical question of course everyone knows it is the sky. That is the ultimate answer to that question, actually now that I think about it, what is up? Is it up or are we up? Hmm? Hmmmmm?

Ok enough of that nonsense. Been a pretty tame week, just prepping for my trip, been pretty much checked out really. A combination of the insane heat and the lack of a working shower. It’s like a dribble, keep getting it fixed and it breaks again. The shower is an oddly mystical thing and without a steady beat of running water I become very dull and very dumb.

It’s something to do with the water hitting you, like sitting under a waterfall aligns all your chakras probably I dunno, rinses your third eye (technically it does). It’s where I do most of my best thinking, where I lay things out straight, hash things out. If I have a problem with a plot point or a scene I take a shower and I think it through and I’ll innevitably have solved it by the time I get out which is usually an hour. I take ridiculously long showers for pretty much this reason alone.

It helps that I’m a germaphobe, but I’m always wary of people that take like 5 minute showers. How is that possible, I don’t have one part of my body I could wash in under 5 minutes (nudge wink).

If I could I’d probably live in the shower and just get a waterproof laptop if that exists. Maybe if I become a millionaire I’ll buy a hot tub with a waterfall going down my back and just stew in there as I write… this is a terrible idea.

Yeah so long story short; I didn’t get much writing done and I’m probably not going to do any proofreading today or the next day because I’ll be too excited, I have to wake up at 4 in the morning to get a half 5 train to the airport and I’m thinking about just not sleeping or just napping throughout the day and then sleep on the plane.

So I figure today I’m just gonna go over my pitch for Diana, read through the whole excerpt and just make sure it’s nice, maybe do a bit of spamming, oh yeah banned off facebook again haha. Just for a tasteless joke as usual, I think there are people that actively report me because there’s no way it was just some random triggered person this time because it was a post on my own wall. So there’s a pc spy on my friends list haha.

Anyway, I dunno Gage is probably one of the worst things I’ve written just because it’s kind of experimental and done for nano. Essentially weird ideas plus 30 day time limit equals; not so good haha, but it was fun so whatever. I was trying some new things but I think this is the part where it sort of comes into it’s own a little I think. The opposite perspective captures what I was trying to do a lot better and it’s far less self serving, less self indulgent less focus on the action more on the world and character building in a fun way, I think.

I started reading the next Witcher book, time of contempt and honestly it’s not really grabbing me. It’s basically like an x rated Harry potter no one asked for haha. It’s a shame really because the first ever witcher story I read was the best and what I thought the series would be. It was basically a noir pulp fantasy story, this stuff is more generic fantasy game of thrones shit but more boring. It could have been this really tight slick gritty action adventure but instead it’s this ponsey political drama with dragons and shit, such a let down honestly. Well nevermind the Parker book is all those things and more but not fantasy haha. Just had to slip in some witcher hate haha. I’m just really disappointed more than anything, I thought this series would be amazing and hook me into fantasy and it just hasn’t.

Been talking too much already, I need to do some work at least, just been too excited to think really, going to see the most important people in the world to me and my time with them is so fleeting.

Must dash.

See you…

 

As it happened Lugtroopers were forbidden from drinking alcohol. It had some sort of neural effect that could be passed on to the Kafta they were linked with. I didn’t really want to get bogged down in the technical aspect of it. Nor would I want someone with a highschool education like Gable trying to explain technology he most certainly did not understand.

In fact Ryan was so concerned about it he chose to use those god awful electronic cigars as opposed to the real thing. Although what in heavens name the effect of tobacco on one of those things could be is anyone’s guess but he wasn’t taking any chances.

I didn’t much care for drinking alone so we decided to skip the formalities and get straight to asking questions. First stopping off to get the latest paper. The headline was regarding some sort of unity rally in the capital and new york. It was in response to the death of the Cyclon boy and a number of terrorist activities down south from what were described as ‘Speciesist groups’. The rally was celebrating the harmony between the different species in the cities living together. It was a celebration of the strength in their diversity. The rally was the freed Kaftas and humans and all breeds in between lead by Cyclon organizers. They marched through the streets and conducted a ritual burning of pre-alien literature. Anything that denoted aliens as wicked or capricious in some way as a device to divide the races. They chanted in unision ‘Kill the speciesist’ as some of the group got a little rambunctious. They began pulling out and beating those that wouldn’t leave their places of work and march with them. But the paper made sure to highlight that this was a tiny minority of the events that occurred and those that commited violence were motivated by a devotion to love and unity.

Unfortunately this time Ryan insisted on accompanying me on company business. Which I opposed as he was just a contractor and not actually in the full employ of the company. But he told me he’d feed me to his lugger (which thankfully were kennelled for the time being until they so needed them) if I ever spoke to him again. That pretty much ended every interaction we ever had from that point on.

The bar was your standard border town saloon as might be described in some trashy novella you buy in railway stations. It of course smelled no different from the jail cells, being the source of the drunkiness and general filthiness. The bartender was a thin man who looked rather young. But on closer inspection his forehead was very lined and there were deep lines around his eyes signifying all the late nights. He had very light hair over tanned freckled skin which made it seem like his light hair almost glowed or wasn’t there. It was odd and apparently everyone called him ‘Whitey’ because of how pale his hair was and of course because his first name was in fact ‘White’. I cant say the folks here had much of a creative imagination. Which is surprising as most of the greats like Shakespeare found themselves almost continually soused.

I felt bad for the chap as Ryan went about torturing the poor sod almost immediately, he’d broken two of his fingers before he even asked him his name. It appeared he’d let me talk to the sheriff purely because he was incapable of having a conversation with someone without first making them swallow their own teeth. I almost shuddered but for the efficiency of the brutality. And when he finally did ask a question McGruber tripped over himself to implicate his own mother in misgivings.

It seemed to be a policy of the Lugtroopers to display such needless barbarism for barbarism’s sake. Brutuality was it’s own end to them as they were soldiers after all and must have seen this land as a hostile territory which in some respects it was.

But what could I have done? Argue with him and lose some of my own teeth and anger the people charged with defending me. All for some local yokel that would have drunk his teeth away eventually anyway and who’s face I would hopefully never see again. So I said nothing and pretended not to care.

Read the full chapter here on inkitt.

Something must break

 

 

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