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The One That Came Back Chapter 2 ‘Small Change’.

Well here he is, my first and maybe my only detective character haha. Porter Caraway, I hope you like him, or maybe I don’t, I worked hard on him or maybe I didn’t haha.

What have I been up to besides day job, not much, doing what I hate, waiting and watching. I hate that shit, I’m only happy when I’m moving forward, can’t stand standing still. I’m waiting on my editor to get back to me on editing LCYE so I can give it away for free, waiting on artists to get back to me on covers for LCYE and GS, waiting waiting waiting, driving me crazy. I want to be selling this shit, I want my fame and millions now please haha. Yeah right.

I need to keep moving forward, I said I’d wait til january to write something new and I kept my promise, did I need the rest, probably not. It’s just another novella to keep my mind occupied until I settle on another novel. I’m battling in my minds between doing the fantasy novel or the serial killer dexter fanfic. They’re both fighting for supremacy in my subconscious.

Or I could fall back on a longer comic synopsis, I have some crazy shit stored away but my instincts are telling me if this novel, this one as in ‘The one that came back’ isn’t a mainstream hit, if it doesn’t get me an agent or get above an amazon publish then I need to focus on more mainstream hot spots, so the dexter fanfic and the crazy shit I have in my back catalogue is pushed to the side by the fantasy series I’m not as crazy about. And I know just writing more and more shit won’t help me sell books unless I can market them but I’m not as interested in selling as I am in publishing them for real and not going into this sea of indie nonsense. But I’m trying to stradle both streams, why not?

So right now, just losing my mind, swimming in a sea of unease, unsure what stone to step on next, if I’m even moving forward. I dunno, anyway here’s a segment of it here.

Let me know what you think and as always you can check out the full chapter and the last chapter on inkitt.

Small Change

See you…

~

It was late, a guy in a pair of sweatpants and vest beat on a Blonde in a tan overcoat in the glare of a giant super eight sign.

The parking lot of the super eight was like a cheery holiday graveyard, all lit up and nowhere to go.

“You done?” The blonde spat blood on the floor and looked up at the man in the vest.

“You fucking son-of-!“ The man in the vest sunk a shoeless foot into the blonde’s ribs and he wheezed a sickly a laugh through a bust lip.

“The pictures are in the mail.” The blonde looked up at him, cocking his head, his sunken eyes half open. He licked his lips and propped himself up on his hands as he sat on the parking lot floor to watch the man in the vest go back into his motel room. The room closest the entrance looking out onto the interstate. Guess he thought he could see anyone coming and he did. Not that it mattered.

The blonde was still sitting on the happy concrete as he watched the man in the vest through his open curtains. He entered his brightly lit room, greeted by his brightly lit woman. The blonde on the ground smiled and waved as he pushed a cigarette passed his split lip.

She held the man in the vest back as his blood boiled up again. Instead he just marched over shot a few daggers at the blonde and shut the blinds.

Porter pulled himself up off the ground, all the outside bits hurt. The skin and the bone, but the inside, no one could touch that. He ruffled his short blond hair, running a finger across his jawline. Making sure his rudy good looks were still all in the right order. Dusting himself off he felt a little melancholy slip in as it usually does. The image of the woman he’d been sent to spy on greeting the man she sent out to beat his ass, warmed the cockles of his heart. A part of him knew he’d never have that for some reason. Nah it was just his job to watch, like someone paid to poke an antfarm every ten minutes or so, see what fell out.

What fell out this time; a husband paid him a couple hundred bucks up front to get him pictures. His woman was stepping out with some small time country music singer. Apparently the honkey tonk man’s daughter made it big up north and left him down here to rot. Squeezing her two dollar ass into five dollar spandex and shaking it for teenagers. Fine work, if you can get it. Now he was carving himself off a piece of someone else’s wife.

He’d already been hanging on the last couple of nights and he had enough pictures. This was just a follow up, obviously he’d out stayed his welcome.

~

Small Change

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GREEN SUNDAY Chapter 13 ‘Sunday Mourning’ (Edited) Sunday returns, finally.

Ok ok finally getting around to going over these edited chapters of GS fresh out of the girl and cat publishing bakery of fine editing. Thanks as always to Nat and her time and effort and really great comments.

I’ve fallen behind on these and now seeing a gap in writing I thought it was best to strike now and get them out of the way so I can move onto editing for my newer stuff and get onto a new project.
I’m taking a little break, which isn’t really a break and will last til january. I’m just not starting any new projects at the minute and focusing on editing and cleaning older stuff up as well as plotting new stories mainly a sloppy as shit Dexter fanfic. I’ve got big dreams people, I’ve got Jeff Linday on facebook and we’ve exchanged like five words haha. I’m sure he’s just chomping at the bit to have me take the reigns of his mythos haha.

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m doing it, I should be plotting out my fantasy story or laying the solid ground work for a new Green Sunday but I just felt like doing some Dexter stuff for fun. It just bubbled to the surface of my mind and I felt like hammering it out a little for when I eventually start reading the books again and getting straight in my head.

In January, I’ll be jumping into another novella probably, just to break the pace up a little, do something a tad different, a little fantasy/surreal horror. Which now thinking back sounds pretty much what Ladies Close Your Eyes turned into but I didn’t intend it to haha.

It’ll be another adapted comic strip and I have a rough idea which one I have in mind but I’m a fickle cunt so whichever sticks best in my head on the day will be what goes down, new year new head, new flesh.

So here we are back again, I’ve got all the chapters done now, just gonna doll them out to you on here and of course you can read them all, because I’m just putting them all up as they’re done on my inkitt page which I will leave a link to below.

I’m probably going to launch the full book on amazon some time next year when I get the cover back from an artist friend of mine and do some marketing giving away LCYE as a free ebook, which I’ll do on here and facebook and twitter and probably minds.

Here it is chapter 13 ‘Sunday Mourning’, let me know what you think and don’t forget to check on out on twitter and minds.

https://www.minds.com/CallMeRyk

As always the full chapter can be found on my inkitt page.

Sunday Mourning

See you…

–

A drone camera buzzed over the scene behind TJ’s house, out of sight, too high up to be heard. Its ambivalent gaze documenting everything. Its lens flitted about like that of an insect’s eye. The monitor feed from Evergreen’s deployment truck glared as he grinned back, the feed reflected in his goggles.

“She got too close to the perimeter of the game zone. Looks like she was taken out by beta team,” The nerd at the console said as he looked over the footage again. “Very clean; she won’t have felt a thing.” Murray straightened his glasses with a morbid sense of appreciation. “They really are the best, sir”.

“Uh huh.” Evergreen’s grin shrunk a few sizes, listening to the tech gush. “It’s time.”.

“Yes, sir, beginning stage three,” the tech said as he turned back to his console.

~

Helicopter blades cut through a violent wind, casting rain in wide dispersal patterns as the heavy behemoths rocked back and forth.

These were military transport helicopters, for carrying battlements or vehicles to the field: four in all, carrying heavy metal containers. They looked like smooth industrial shipping containers, but both the containers and the choppers were completely unmarked.

“Roger that. We’re estimated four hours out of the drop zone. Good morning. If this rain lets up, it’s gonna be a beautiful day,” the chopper pilot said over his radio.

~

“You kept me waiting,” Carpenter whispered as he twisted the barbed point of the arrow under Dave’s chin. Dave grimaced, dropping his torch and kukri.

“Killing me will do you no good. I’m not a part of the game; I’m just his assistant!”

Carpenter took Dave by his shoulders and threw him down on the dirty linoleum floor. Dave offered little resistance and fell at the side of the dead woman drinking the milkshake. His fall caused her to shift in her seat, sliding down the bench until her face rested right next to Dave’s as he attempted to dust himself off. By the dim light of his torch he could see he was in kissing range of the gaping exit wound in her face.

“Oh, shit!” He gaped.

“‘Oh, shit’ indeed,” Carpenter chuckled as he picked up both Dave’s torch and his kukri knife.

“What do you want?”

Carpenter put the torch under his chin and smiled like a ghoul in an old monster movie. “A way out.”

“Why would I know the way?”

“Do you like scary movies?” Carpenter said, smiling. He poked each yellow tooth with his tongue in turn. “You don’t think there was someone like you and your butt buddy up there the last time?” Carpenter let out a bitter little breathy laugh. He shook the beam of the torch around, feigning hysterics. “It’s a sick world we live in.”

He marched up to Dave and stomped on the leg closest to him; Dave let out an anguished cry like an injured animal.

Carpenter crouched down next to Dave, shining the torch in his face and Dave cowered under the beam, guarding his eyes with his hand. Carpenter saw it immediately and snickered to himself, thinking of something poetic to say at this karmic justice he’d send on its way. “Feeling all right? Fever? Dry mouth? Itching under the skin? E-rectile dysfunction?”

Dave looked up at him and swallowed a dry gob of spit.

“There’s a helicopter. North side of town, by the abandoned railyard, but it’s guarded; you’ll never make it alone.”

Carpenter gave him that wide devil grin and turned to walk away, tossing the torch and the kukri away as he left Dave scrabbling in the dark.

“I’m not alone; not anymore.”

~

TJ couldn’t move. His body was rooted to the ground by chains of empty regret. His limbs felt hollow and heavy at the same time.

“TJ, it’s Sunday, I know we just met, but you have to trust me. I used you; I’m not a good person. But I can make it up to you, if you live,” Sunday whispered in TJ’s ear where he lay on the cold, damp grass of his backyard. A light drizzle was approaching, accompanied by muffled threats of dull, aching thunder.

TJ remained perfectly still. Sunday swallowed and turned him over. His eyes were open, vacant and grey. His mouth hung open a fraction and fluttered as if he was trying to say something but didn’t have enough energy. “TJ, can you hear me? We need to move. You’re gonna come with me, OK?” She hooked her dainty little hands under his sweaty pits, lifting him with some effort. “Urf, fuck, you’re heavy!”

She turned him around and dragged him in the direction of his house. “Ergh! This would be a lot easier if you just – hrrff, hrrff – stood up and, you know, walked.”

She got him back into the kitchen, which felt a lot colder now. Closing the door, she looked out the window. His mother’s body, lying there, looked almost beautiful. Sunday breathed in and out, feeling her icy breath swirling around in her chest. “It could have been worse,” she sighed as the rain rolled in.

~

 

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The Butcher of Barclay’s Hollow by Nick R B Tingley – A review

Well written but underwhelming.

I first chapter just didn’t really grab me. I moan about this constantly on inkitt. People just plonk a first chapter down and then move on to the next one, but the first chapter is really the most important. It’s like a summary of everything to follow. It has to be linked to the overall plot somehow and it’s the first step into this greater world, so stuff, a significant amount of stuff needs to happen or if it’s even very little it has to be pretty powerful. I mean what really happens in the first chapter? A butcher saves a little girl from being maimed and then gets criticized by passers-by. And although I expect their distaste for him to be a theme I doubt it ties to the main plot at all. So really this incident is irrelevant as a starting point.
I get you probably want to ease into it and I usually like pieces like this and reading this encouraged me to get out my copy of Hound of the Baskervilles. And even in that, a flowery period piece published over a hundred years ago the first chapter gets to the point. They’re not talking about the Hound but they’re talking around it, building up to it. but it’s clear that its building to something and then the next chapter is called ‘The curse of the Baskervilles’. We have none of that here, it’s just one scene with no foreshadowing or hints of an overarching plot at all.
I think this entire chapter could have served better as just a flashback or a story relayed by the girl at a later date and you could have started further on in the story to start at a more relevant point. Giving the main character a little more mystery. You hinted vaguely at a tragedy backstory, so I expect he had a wife and child that died and thus builds a connection with the little girl over the course of the book. As it stands now it’s sort of throw away.
It’s well written, I like the period style although there are some typos and errors. It needs a good proof read because these obviously slipped through spellcheck. I have to say I cringed at some of it because it just seems like it’s trying too hard to be period even in the non-diegetic stuff and it’s kind of unnecessary when it could be done better. When I read a modern period piece I expect to be hit in the face with the research involved rather than just flowery language and period accents. I want to be shown more than I’m told. It was easier for Conan-Doyle because he was obviously immersed in it. But it’s not really an excuse, what in this story really justifies a period setting? You could take that entire chapter and just change the carriage to a car and it would be no different.
Overall, it’s very serviceable if a little cliché, I save my harshest criticism for the work I think has potential. I like the title, I like the premise, the style is good but frankly your first chapter is boring. The skill is there but the hook is not.
I hoped this helped, I wish you the best of luck with it.

The Butcher of Barclay’s Hollow

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Ok fuck it, The one who came back, Chapter One ‘A little Rain’.

Ok so still the holiday season is kicking my ass workwise and I got a new phone so I was locked out my microsoft account and the lock out was supposed to end today so I could get to more edited GS Chapters but it’s a no go.
So I thought fuck it, why not just give up the first chapter of my NaNo novel. I may be releasing this on inkitt, I’m in talks with a publisher, so I’m not sure if I want to go through them directly but a glimpse at the first chapter couldn’t hurt.
As soon as christmas is over, I’m moving on to getting my novella edited and giving it away as a promotional gift to people who sign up to my  mailing list.

Also banned on Facebook again because some piece of shit sjw from the nano group (That group is full of cancer) flagged my cover photo which happened to have the word ‘faggot’ in it completely not being used in the context of a hatecrime or being directed at gay people at all. So banned for thirty days and today I was supposed to be getting to grips with Minds and launching there but I got caught up in some twitter drama instead, so fucking productive.

But for what it’s worth my Minds page.
https://www.minds.com/CallMeRyk

But here it is, the first chapter of The one who came back, the mystery novel set to take airport lounges by storm haha.

As per usual, this isn’t the whole first chapter but I’m too lazy to put it up on inkitt right now, actually fuck it, I’ll do it now.

A little rain

There you go you ungrateful pricks haha. That took longer than I thought haha.

I was kind of manic as fuck when I wrote it, I hope it shows, enjoy.

–

“Police, go ahead”

“My wife and me are here as tourists-“

“-We’ve found a kid”

“He’s about fourteen or fifteen years old-“

“- No id, no documents on him”

“He’s very scared”

It was raining.

The rain beat down, getting in all the cracks on the sidewalk. It dashed cars and made those little muted tapping sounds as it hit people’s coats as they walked by.

Neon lights of a sign, car headlights, streaked in the rain like they were melting.

The soothing sound of the rain falling, muted the sounds of thunder.

A boy tried to make himself as small as possible in the bottom of a phonebooth. The rain beat down, tapping on the glass, trying to get in.

He wore a hooded coat with a cap and a pair of running bottoms with white stripes up the sides. He sat curled up at the bottom with his head in his knees breathing steady, the receiver hanging by his head.

The phonebooth stood alone in the centre of a cobbled townsquare lined with caged trees reaching straight up. European style lampposts dotted throughout the square cast sickly yellow pools of light. There was a square roofed totem plastered with aging posters advertising bands in Spanish. Stark bushes behind it, all their leaves long gone, left with only boney finger twigs stretching out in all directions.

Long distant sirens going somewhere else.

The boy in the booth peeled back the sleeve of his jacket and looked at a digital watch, the time was ‘9:58pm’.

The bottom of the phonebooth was made of some cheap plastic like a black shower matt curling at the corners. It was wet with people’s feet, the rain getting in through the cracks. Dirty cigarette butts mashed into it, little pink pieces of paper, fliers with girls on them soaking up muddy water and a boy.

A police car pulled up in front of the totem with its lights off, the headlights filled up the phonebooth. They stopped the car and put the lights on, red and blue flashing. They got out of the car and left the lights on.

Two cops with their hoods down, on the passenger side, the bald cop approached the phonebooth speaking Spanish. Reaching out his hand like he was trying to feed a small animal.

The boy lifted his head to look at the light through the crack in the phonebooth door. He shivered as the cold damp started to get to him. The man approached slow and low, the boy made himself even smaller. He shrank into his big rain coat and tried to get away from himself. But he was in a corner.

The police man opened the door of the phonebooth and asked him if he was alright. The cop was average build, in his forties with a greying beard. The concern lines on his forehead painted a vivid picture of a man with his own problems, he didn’t need to be out here.

The rain poured down on him as he spoke, trying to be heard over the constant beating of water around his head. The boy lifted his head an inch, hiding his eyes behind the lip of a cap pulled down low on his head. He cowered with his hands in front of his face.

The cop getting rained on, lost his patience for a moment and reached out for the boy at the bottom of the booth. The boy pulled back pushing his hands up. He was shaking.

“Tranquilo, tranquilo” The cop said slow as he put his hands up and backed off just a little. He eased back and signalled for the boy to come “Vamos”.

The boy was ashen, his hands in front of his face, shaking nervously. He looked lost and frightened.

The cop took his arm and gingerly helped him to his feet.

He led the boy hunched like a refugee towards the brightly lit police car.

The boys legs seemed weak, his knees buckled and the second cop swam through the rain to prop him up on his otherside. They carried him arm in arm to the waiting police car, the sound of the windshield wipers screeching.

They put him in the back seat and shut the door. He ducked his head and listened to the rain.

–

“What is your name?” A woman said in a robotic tone.

“Tell us your name” She asked again.

They watched the boy’s face even as he tried to hide, on the monitors. His cap was pulled way down and he had a scarf almost covering the other half of his face.

“Where do you live?” She kept asking.

The pixelated camera zoomed out as he said nothing. Hung his head like a frightened animal.

“Do you live with your parents?”

The boy sat in a windowed interview room with the door open looking at nothing.

He sat still against a blank cream wall in the warm room, speaking rarely and in whispers.

“Did your parents hurt you?”

It looked more like a glassed office than an interview room. It was wood panelled with opaque glass all the way around. He looked out the door and saw people at desks lit by old fashioned lamps sifting through papers. Phones ringing, people talking, clattering of chairs and hushed breath.

His hands were deep down in the pockets of his coat. He got comfortable in the chair sinking further and further down into it.

It smelled like cigarettes and heady perfume in the office. Sweet and bitter smells.

He sat at a straight wooden table. As he looked around there were loose pieces of paper in Spanish tacked onto the wall around his head, notices, pictures of people.

The woman across the desk was pretty, in her mid to early thirties but with a strain of concern on her face like it had always been there. Her sandy hair was tied back in a tight plait littered with split ends. She was in a blue uniform adorned with shiney gold buttons. She continued to talk and he watched her lips move.

He looked behind her, on the wall were more posters. A laminated one behind her head had large pictures of people and said “MUY PELIGROSOS” in bold letters above them. There was a book shelf with hastily tidied files. Binders and large books that looked like phone books piled on top of eachother in no particular order.

In the outer office people were smoking and tapping away at old computers. The bald police man who picked him up was on the phone looking at him through the crack in the door. He nodded putting out his cigarette and hanging up the phone.

–

 

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LCYE Chapter 10 ‘Dance of the Dream man’ Raw AKA return of the dreamer.

Yoyoyo this obnoxious intro was brought to you by someone that smashed NaNoWriMo 2016!!!!!!!!

Yeah I’m not that psyched about it, all I got was a crappy like certificate I had to download and put my own name on and a computer generated pat on the back. Even my mother was dissapointed, I somehow convinced her it was important and the prize wasn’t just 50,000 words of complete gibberish. Nah I’m fucking with you, its pretty good, it’s not entirely finished, should be done and dusted by december and I’ll start leaking proofread chapters on here and probably inkitt too although I’ve been in talks with this publishing house called quivering quills or some gay shit, I don’t know, but they looked at GS and thought it was a piece of shit but who knows they might like this, it may not be a complete piece of shit.

So yeah I was gone, almost sort of lost my mind there, everyday spent inside my head trying to hold on to some semblance of sanity as well as keep up with a 2k a day word quota. It almost made my day job feel like a break from the bleak blank insane scratching inside the wet wailing walls of my skull. Which reminds me the holiday season is upon us and I must go back to work and listen to same christmas type music over and over again and try not fucking impale people with a christmas tree.

Updates updates updates, it’s back to business, shock horror, I lied to you Ladies Close Your Eyes has been completed for months maybe, not actually maybe just a few weeks and I was just releasing a chapter at a time to tease or whatever but I just thought fuck it and I wanted to mess with inkitts algorithyms so I published the whole thing. But I will still keep posting individual chapters because I’m back and I need a constant stream of content and with the day job and proofreading and sorting out all the shit I need to do to get GS ready for amazon or a garbage fire I really don’t have time to just do wordy nonsense blogs or reviews so yeah.

With no more to do here it is, Chapter ten ‘Dance of the Dream man’ if you haven’t watched Twin Peaks you should, very much inspired by that, I love the mixing of the dark and the absurd. Absurdity and comedy sort of act as lube for the big black cock of horror you slowly slide down allowing it to get deeper and deeper inside the anus of your fetid minds. Whereas without the lube you might just sit on it and jump off straight away. (Metaphor excellence achieved).

As for today I’m gonna be chilling and probably christmas knife shopping for myself.

As usual you can get a preview here and check out the full chapter over on inkitt. I’m probably gonna be giving this away soon as a free ebook to people who sign up to my blog so please as soon as I do this forget inkitt exists please haha.

Dance of the Dream Man

Cheers!

–

James was standing in front of the blue door; someone had left it open. He pushed it and it opened with a rehearsed creaking sound. Allowing a thin shaft of daylight to spread in an arc across the floor.

James swallowed hard and in his head it was very loud. He gingerly entered the small room following the beam of light.

The light ended before the opening of a tiny bathroom. Looking inside, it had no windows. Just a shower bath combo with a shower curtain pulled closed all the way around in the right corner running along the wall. The toilet was to the left in the other corner but the room was so small they were almost touching. The sink was in the small amount of space in the right corner closest to the door in front of the bath. The bathroom was tiled all around in a black and white pattern that went from the floor to the walls. The ceilings and places untouched by tiles were the same desert tan colour as the outside of the building. The toilet seat matched the patter, the porcelain was naturally white but the seat and lid were black.

There was just something off about black in a bathroom, it hid the dirt but it also felt dirty.

There was a loud dripping noise coming from the bath tub.

James approached the bath and gripped the edges of the shower curtain which met at the corner of the bath.

He parted them swiftly, like ripping off a band aid.

The bath was full of a brown dark liquid, a putrid rusty water that had a dank smell. The bath itself was filthy, the gaps between the black and white tiles were black with mould. The shower head and bath fixture were also covered in the same black mould. He examined the taps and the shower head but there was nothing leaking.

Remembering himself he set to looking about the bathroom for any clues. Shy of sticking his hand in that filthy water and draining the tub there was nothing of interest in the bathroom. He could have stuck his hand down the toilet, but why would he do that?

He left the bathroom and returned to the bed/living room area.

The bed was un-made and showed signs of a struggle, the satin sheets were half off the queen sized bed. The long red curtains were drawn, the chair in the corner of the room was empty and there was nothing on the coffee table. The room smelled like sex and cheap perfume.

The old TV was in the same place as his dream but the screen was dark.

“Dream?” As he said it he started to feel light headed, his heart started to race and he couldn’t get it to stop. “Was it a dream?”.

He stumbled and knocked the TV off its stand leaving a large crack down the centre of the bevelled screen.

James collapsed into the chair in the living area and tried to catch his breath, he closed his eyes and tried to centre himself, stop the spinning. It felt like something unnatural was happening. Like his brain was rebooting, trying to make sense of two memories overlapping.

Just like that he felt something poking him from the side of the seat cushion. He put his hand down the side to see what it was.

It was a business card.

‘Dr. Alphonso Moral’

It had the second love symbol on it with a phone number on the back.

Now he started to remember, he had gone there, but something had gone wrong.

He shambled out of the room, a sheen of sweat across his brow. The sun was still high but the fresh air made him straighten up a little as he walked back towards the office.

The office was still open; he must have been gone only twenty minutes.

Like before the old man wasn’t at his desk so James rang the bell. There was something off about the front desk though, there was something missing and he couldn’t quite place it. The fan was still going back and forth and although it offered some breeze it was slight and pointed in the wrong direction. He tried to turn it around but it was affixed to the desk somehow.

He rang the bell again, remembering it took at least three rings for the old man to know you were serious.

On the third ring he expected to hear some commotion in the back but there nothing, just the TV on like before. An infomercial about old people losing the remote was playing. Advertising some kind of device that would let you find it, necessarily he thought what would happen if you lost the device to find the remote too.

He rang the bell a fourth time but still he couldn’t hear anything.

James sighed anxiously. The old man must have gone out or he was sleeping in the back. All he really wanted was to use the phone. He couldn’t know for sure but he was pretty certain he was in a hurry.

James went around the counter and put on a loud but unthreatening voice.

“HEY- ERR, OLD MAN? I JUST WANNA USE THE PHONE, I’LL BE GONE IN A SECOND. I THINK I BROKE ONE OF YOUR TV’S I’LL PAY YOU BACK FOR IT, DON’T WORRY”.

James entered the back room through the little alcove beyond the beads. The beads making an unnerving cacophony of clacking noises.

The old man was asleep in his chair facing away from the alcove towards a large TV set on a stand not unlike the ones in the rooms, sitting in the corner. A long hanging mirror on the wall next to it.

The phone was on a small side table against the wall on the right as soon as you entered the alcove. It was a weird novelty phone in the shape of a football. Which was particularly odd since he hadn’t noted any football memorabilia of any sort in the lobby or anywhere as he looked around now. The room was ‘cosy’.

There were more of those plants wilted in the corners of the room. There was no furniture apart from the easy chair the old man was asleep in which looked like real leather, real old leather. There was a small table next to the chair but it was knocked over with an upturned bowl of chips next to it. He must have just knocked it over while he was sleeping. The floors were hard wood for lack of a carpet. There were just some beaten up looking rugs with floral patterns. There was another beaded alcove which must have led to a kitchenette and a bedroom if he really did live here.

James quietly picked up the phone’s receiver and started to dial with the card cupped in his other hand and the receiver cradled in his neck. There was another mirror on the wall above the side table and James looked at himself for a brief indulgent moment of vanity. He looked a little younger in that Jacket he couldn’t remember buying, not that it mattered. The cut above his eye looked ok and his neck wasn’t hurting as much.

As the phone started to ring he noticed something in the mirror he’d missed on his way in. There was something out of place next to the TV, in front of the long hanging mirror. The phone was still ringing while he looked closer at it in the mirror above the side table. It was some kind of heavy rectangular object, four wooden corners embossed with a brass trimming. The brass seemed to be rusting but only on one of the corners and along the sides of the object adjacent to that corner. Possibly it was supposed to be sitting in the corner of the room and those parts were never polished.

He couldn’t see much else from that angle so he took a step the right and craned his neck, he didn’t want to turn around and whip the phone off the table. He was on hold; the music was some French woman whining about something or other.

There was a plaque on the base but he was too far away to read what it said. But in his new angle he was able to see a small fuzzy shape and he remembered what was wrong with the desk scene. ‘Fido’.

The stuffed Chihuahua from the front desk had taken up legs and moved here and was lying on the floor. A cold sensation gripped his gut and he swallowed hard as his eyes craned up from the dog lying on the floor. His jaw tightened as he saw a pale set of eyes staring back at him reflected in the hanging mirror into the mirror above the side table.

The old man was slumped in his chair, his hairy white arms hanging off the sides. His lifeless cloudy eyes staring into the mirror. His head was a mess of blood and bone and brain matter, caved in with the corner of the little stuffed mutt.

James licked his lips frozen. A man’s voice came on the line.

“Hello, who is this?”

“I’ll call you back”. James said as he hung up the phone.

~

Dance of the Dream Man

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Blood Ties By Katie Matthias – A review

Bloody good.

Hands down this is probably the most professional story I’ve read on inkitt. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an actual novel someone had copy pasted here haha.
It’s very professionally written, the prologue is nice, but after reading the first chapter it seems a little bit surperfluous to have her locked up. I think the first chapter has enough of a hook the prologue draws it out a little too much and considering the first chapter is already very long, it seems a little excessive and overindulgent.
The style is perfect, first person narratives are hard to get right, but you nailed it. It’s just right, not too cocky or self-depricating, it hits a sweet spot right in the middle and I like the character of Ana. Female characters are tough, if you make them too nice they come off as Bella Swan wilting violets, too tough and they just sound bitchy. Ana is not too hot and not too cold, she’s just right. Not too nice as to be boring and not too mean to call a bitch.
The first chapter is everything I’d want from a first chapter, it sets up the story, the characters, and leaves a nice thread for the overarching plot, culminating in a very nice hook. It’s a little long but it really makes use of all that length, there’s never a point that seems unnecessarily drawn out or boring, it’s all vital and interesting and gripping.
Now to set this aside, the level of research is great, the medical knowledge on display, is very believable, and it really helps pull me into the story. This to me and any else reading it says, this took time and effort, somebody loved this book and put their time into.
The only real criticism I have are few and far between and almost too middling to mention. Ok well the paragraphs are really much too long, you just have these big long walls of text that need mountaneering equipment to scale.
That’s gripe one, gripe two, the title, it’s incredibly generic. Just type ‘blood ties’ into google and you get a laundry list of book and shows and movies and what have you. It’s much too mundane a title for such a skillful book.
My third and final gripe; Vampires? Really? haha.

All in all I think this is probably the most accomplished thing I’ve read on inkitt, I could easily see this in print, easily. Even a film adaptation. Bravo.

If you want to read the story in full and reserve a free copy, it would really help out a fantastic fledgling writer.

Blood Ties

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LCYE Chapter 9 ‘White Noiz’

It’s sort of finished now I guess, I stopped tapping the keyboard at least ha-ha. I like it, I think it’s the start of something new and good. I’m reading more of those Richard Stark Parker novels, they’re fucking infectious. Effortlessly cool, I just love them and the more I read them the more inspired I get to write like that. His style is bleeding into mine and I can’t get enough of it. It’s the perfect filler to stuff in that Dexter shaped hole in my life. I really want to read all the Dexter books again. Not just because I loved them and they spoke to me but also because when I read them I was deeply in love with someone and some music and I need to feel that again.
When I was reading those books it was the happiest and brightest my life had ever been and to see them end it brought in the end of that relationship too. And it’s fitting since those books are about someone trying to be human and failing at every turn. Trying to have love but lacking the vital component to make it work and keep it alive. Some people just aren’t meant to love, if not then what are they meant to do? Who knows.
Enough of that feeling sorry for myself bullshit onto the chapter and updates. I’m still in talks for the cover and the editing is coming along for Green Sunday. I think it’s going on amazon soonish. Still bricking it over nano, I just feel so fucking competitive, I want to win but I don’t think I can and give the story the attention and time it needs, I need to slow down, this is serious business. Oh, I also watched the new ghostbusters movie and yeah it was trash ha-ha, so I might do a review of that.

Ok this chapter is a bit of a departure, slipped in a little more action, bit of breaking bad crept in somehow, but I hope you like it. And yeah I spelled noise wrong on purpose haha. Its the title of a silent hill song.

As usual you can check it out for free on inkitt.

White Noiz

~

Con reached the bathroom down the narrow hall. The house was like a maze, it felt like there were too many rooms, too many doors squeezed into such a tight building. He passed two bedrooms on his way into what looked like a parlour with a set of carpeted stairs leading to an upstairs bedroom in the attic space. One of the bedrooms was completely empty, carpeted and painted in the same way as the rest of the house, the other was locked.

The parlour had a few black couch chairs and a pool table with what looked like a minibar in the corner. It had another set of glass doors which lead out into the yard and overlooked the pool. A big black ceiling fan span above his head as he stood, hands in pockets looking out at the pool.

He crossed the room past the pool table almost tripping over a black leather foot stool. He leant on the railing of the stairs looking up at the attic door. It looked locked too but it was worth a shot.

Just as he mounted the first step his ears pricked up to a muted cracking sound and brief fumbling from where he’d come.

He pulled his Glock 19 with a nervous jerk from the moulded holster on his hip and soft stepped around the pool table with the gun at his side. He shouldered up to the corner and took the safety off, he held his breath and rounded the corner with his gun high. The tight corridor was empty the door to one bed room still closed the door to the empty bedroom was open still. The closed door was closer on his left so he tersely slid along the wall keeping his eye on the edge of the hall where the sitting room was located. He got to the locked door and tried it again, it was still locked.

He popped out around the door of the empty bedroom and it was still empty. He continued at a quickening pace down the hall. He kept his breathing steady but his heart beat was fast and light.

He swung around the corner of the sitting room, it was empty. He did a further sweep to make sure there was no one in the kitchen or entryway. All the doors were closed and he opened them quietly one by one, revealing storage closets full of cleaning products and chemicals. The other was a study full of unopened boxes, a desk with a monitor on it, behind the last door was a tiny bathroom with just a sink and a toilet.

Making his way back into the sitting room he loosened his chest a little. The TV on the wall was cracked and there was a half-heeled shoe on the carpet without a foot. A couch cushion lay on the floor open.

He stalked into the kitchen and saw her lying on the floor, one shoe off. He swept to her side on one knee, his gun still in his hand as he felt for her pulse. It was weak but it was there. Her knight in shining armour breathing heavy over her, feeling nothing but burning in his chest.

His head got a little numb and he started to feel dizzy as he stood up. His tongue clacked dry, He pounded the side of his head with his balled palm around the butt of his gun. He opened and closed his eyes deliberately, as if his lids were glued together and he had to pull them apart.

He took a sharp snort of air and was straight again. His shoulders knotted up tight lifting the gun like his arms were on marionette strings. Wobbling slightly but long and straight and rigid. He took up his firing stance and paced through the kitchen trying to make as little noise as possible on the tiled floor.

There was a small alcove behind the breakfast bar adjacent to a set of two white wooden slated doors that probably lead into a small pantry. Con rounded the breakfast bar tightly, using his hand to toss himself around the sharp corner. He passed through alcove into a small carpeted anti-room. This room didn’t seem to have a purpose since it was too open and close to the kitchen to be a bedroom and too small to be another living room or sitting area. Despite that it had the same carpeting and the same type of ceiling fan with the daffodil shaped light fixtures. There was another alcove on his far left that fed back into the entry hallway, a door on the wall on his right which lead outside into the pool area. Another door in front adjacent to the pool was open at an angle.

He braced the ajar door and pushed it open with his empty hand, probing the stale air with the Glock. As the door opened he was in a small strangely angled smoking room with a large sixties style red stone fireplace. Against the back wall there was a beat up leather couch and a wood end table in front of the fireplace facing out. It looked out of place with the new coat of paint and the modern light fixtures running along the ceiling. There was a closed door on the right adjacent wall to the fireplace that probably lead out of the house functioning as a side entrance. The main focus was a strange door that jutted out into the centre of the room. The walls seemed to angle to meet it forming a trapezoidal shape taking up almost a quarter of the floor space. The door was so imposing it took all the focus off the bespoke fireplace and the entire room seemed to centre around it like it was a big flat screen TV.

Con glided over to the door, he gripped the knob and began to turn it, it was unlocked. He flung the door open and pressed against the doorjamb angling his gun through the opening.

It was black as pitch, a set of stairs faintly lit by the sunlight coming in from the window on the other side of the room. The stairs went down into a basement of some kind. Con craned his free hand around fumbling for a light switch. He got a nasty shock on an exposed wire and yanked his hand away like it was a rattlesnake bite. He fumbled around in his pocket for a moment before pulling out his cell phone. There was no signal, they must have been too close to the mountains, he didn’t remember seeing a single landline throughout the whole house. With the gun lodged tight to his chest he held the cell phone out in front of him as his only source of light and started down the stairs.

~

 

 

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GS Chapter 12 edited ‘Live through Death’

Hola people of ‘teh’ world, me again here to spout a mini blog type thing that I do over the chapters of my insane meandering in the world of fiction.

Gonna keep it mercifully short today because reasons, just usual shit. I’m gearing up for nano, wrapping up Ladies Close Your Eyes, I’m pretty happy with it, and the reception on that nepotisitic fart box known as ‘inkitt’ is fairly good. But who gives a shit? I’m enjoying writing it, it was a nice change to do focus on something smaller and different. I’ll try and find a place for it some magazine or contest when it’s done, maybe I’ll get it edited, but judging by the amount of time it’s taking for GS to come back I’d be lucky to get it out before the next ice age. Oh also currently in talks with an artist acquantance of mine for the cover, which should be fun, his art is really… arty. I look forward to spend too much money on that haha.

I’m excited about nano (Almost said about the next ice age), my personal life is in ruins, got no career to speak of but hey I can write some decent shit and that’s a reason not to off myself which is wearing thin haha.

This chapter is the more feelsy one, grab those tissues lads and laddettes, its about to get real up in here.

As usual head on over to those good smarmy twats over at inkitt to get your peepers all over it for free by following this here link. And if anyone wants to send me more pictures of green haired chicks, feel free haha.

Live through Death

~

Candlelight flickered on the counter top in TJ’s kitchen, a weary flame tossed back and forth by a careless breath or a sigh. TJ, his mother and Sunday huddled around the small kitchen table and ate in silence.  A restrained rattling of cutlery hid polite coughs and awkward glances across the table. No one dared utter a word.

TJ’s mom smiled at whomever cast an eye her way, but her smile was a little cracked on one side.

They finished a humble meal of frozen pork chops and a garden salad from a re-sealable pack, which TJ’s mother put back in the crisper at the bottom of the fridge. She cleared their plates.

“Mom, let me help you.”

“It’s fine. You two wash up and get to bed. I set you two up on the couch until we can get your room tidied up.” She sighed. “It’s such a mess; you said an animal got in?”

“Yeah,” TJ said as his hands slipped from the plates. He turned his head away and felt a cold steel ringing in the emptiness that was growing inside him.

His mom smiled as she took the plates to the dishwasher and loaded them in.

“It’s OK. I didn’t like any of those posters anyway; we can get it cleaned up in no time.” A weak laugh tried to escape her diaphragm, but it didn’t quite make it and instead came out as a pained hiccup.

TJ sat back down and looked at Sunday anxiously. She sat with her feet up on her seat, poking at a very dry piece of lettuce, trying not to be noticed.

“I’m done,” she said as she pushed the table away and hopped off the seat. She swam through the tension in the little kitchen and escaped to the cosy solitude of the living room.

TJ bit his bottom lip and swallowed a dry lump, his chest feeling tight and hot.

“Good night,” he said as he got up from the table and walked away. His footsteps, light, barely made contact with the floor. The image of his mother at the kitchen sink got smaller and smaller as he left the room. That image of her burned into his memory.

~

“It’s almost time,” Evergreen sighed. He felt a strange elation washing over him. He kept it to himself. “What do we have in stock?” he said through gritted teeth. A closeted eagerness leaked out in his voice as he leant against a high back chair in the operations van.

“Err, a couple of chimeras, one of those big bastards and that new one,” the tech said as he handed Evergreen a small tablet computer over his shoulder.

The tech seemed to be getting high off of Evergreen’s steely excitement. He sat in his chair, craning his neck to watch. Evergreen smiled, flipping through the pictures on the tablet as it lit up his dark, shark-like face. The mobile command centre was dark, lit only by a series of monitors. They covered the inside of something that looked like a large tanker truck from the outside.

Noticing the attention he was getting from this eager little whelp, Evergreen cast a disparaging eye towards the tech. He was a young guy, maybe late twenties, early thirties, with shaggy blond hair. A set of boxy glasses perched on his sharp nose. His name tag said his name was ‘Murray’. Tossing the tablet into his lap, he said, “Fuck it, ‘Murray’, use ’em all.”

Murray, feeling a little exposed, tilted his eyes down, cleared his throat, adjusted his glasses and got back to work. “Yes, sir. T minus two hours to full release of specimens.”

~

In the dimly lit living room, Sunday had commandeered the roomy sofa and had spread herself across it like Cleopatra. She wore another one of TJ’s zombie-themed shirts with no bottoms. ‘Evil Dead’, this time, with a picture of Ash lifting his chainsaw, ready for root canal work.

“Got a big day tomorrow,” she said as she rolled onto her side, away from TJ, revealing a set of pink panties with a picture of a little cartoon, a smiling green ice cream cone, on the back.

He turned away, trying not to look and burst a blood vessel; a sudden rush of sadness hit him. “Tell me…” He pulled a blanket off the coffee table. His mother had set out a bunch of folded bedding for them both. He began to lay it down flat on the wooden floor. “…Are we gonna make it?”

“What are you doing?” She turned to watch him laying the blanket on the floor. “There’s enough room for both of us on here.” She rolled back over onto her side.

“Err.” A cold sweat began plummeting down to TJ’s ass crack, like cold corpse fingers running down his back “What?” His breath came out in short bursts now.

“You need to get your rest for tomorrow.” She paused and took a deep breath. “You can’t sleep on the floor; I won’t let you.”

TJ swallowed hard, harder than he’d ever swallowed, and began to shake his head up and down like a dog.

“O-K.”

TJ edged his way closer to the couch. Each step felt like jumping on a slippery rock in a fast flowing stream. The image of Sunday’s warm back jostled in his field of vision as he tried to get closer. He reached the edge of the couch. He stopped dead, trying not to make a sound.

She rolled sleepily onto her back.

Without opening her eyes, she yawned and said, “TJ, get on the fucking couch.” She then rolled back onto her side, showing him her lovely back again, with that signature green quaff of hair sticking up from where she had just lain on it.

“Yeah, I’m just…”

He turned away and edged his roomy behind onto the tip of the couch, praying to himself in his head, Please don’t fart. Please don’t fart. Please don’t fart. When all his weight was equally distributed, he let out a little sigh, followed by a small yet squeaky fart that he hoped only dogs could hear. He froze, swallowing hard as he waited for her to say something. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! he said to himself. She stirred. His heart pounded in his chest. His throat became drier than a cough sweet sitting at the bottom of an old lady’s purse.

After a moment of nervous pause, he deduced that she was asleep and hadn’t heard, so he began to gradually lower himself into position on the couch. Pulling the cover up over himself and Sunday, he ever so delicately slid his large body in next to hers. His belly pressed against her warm back and, as he put his head down to rest next to hers, he could smell her hair. It smelled a little musty but not bad musty. Like the stump of a tree with fresh moss growing on it, fresh and rich and intoxicating. Her smell made his hair stand up on his pudgy arms. He tried to position his arms behind her back without touching her butt or making too much noise.

Don’t get a boner, don’t get a boner, don’t get a boner, don’t get a boner, he said to himself, under his breath, as he slithered his arm around her waist, angling for a more comfortable position while holding his breath. It was not unlike someone trying to defuse a bomb in an eighties action movie.

Sighing and releasing the tension in his arm, he grinned like a monkey and took a large inhalation of her hair as he settled into his dream position: the big spoon of a girl he couldn’t have imagined would say more than three words to him if the world wasn’t ending.

His heart leapt in his chest as if it wanted to climb out of his throat and give him a high five. For a minute he forgot what he was even doing on the couch. Oh, yeah, sleep.

He settled and forced his eyes closed. And he glided off to sleep on rainbows and bullshit.

~

Live through Death

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Hide & Seek By Jakayla Toney – A review

Usually what you’ll find on inkitt is people will only read the first chapter of a story and review that, for brevity but also because the first and last chapters are arguably the most important.
The first chapter if you’re going to send this to an editor/publisher/literary agent will in nine out of ten cases be the only chapter they need to read to ascertain whether they want to use your work. So essentially paired with a good synopsis/blurg, the first chapter has to be almost a summation of whats to follow in the entirity of the story.
I understand people like to slow boil their horror which is fine if you’re out their making a name for yourself with that and accumulate fans who like that sort of horror. But have you ever noticed that at the beginning of a horror movie there’s always a sort of prologue where someone else is suffering from the problem the protagonists are working their way towards. Not always but on average you’ll see it as a literal forshadowing. Even in the shining you’re told what happened to the previous caretaker as an effort of foreshadowing, the first conversation they have in the car on the way to the hotel is about the Donner party. People trapped in the winter being forced to eat eachother.
After reading the first chapter and the blurb I have literally no idea what the story is remotely about or have a good feel for any of the characters. You started the story at a point where literally nothing happens except a game of hide and seek. A game of hide and seek which neither serves the story or really develops the characters in any way other than the main protagonist is an excellent hide and seek player.
Other than that, I seem really critical but the writing style is effective, there were a few grammatical errors, even in the first paragraph. But the writing is solid, the first chapter is just too short and nothing happens, You need a hook in the first chapter to force people to read the next chapter, you can’t just end the chapter with “Oh wouldn’t it be cool to play hide and seek in the forest alone” that’s not a hook. It needs more.
Again sorry if this seems harsh, the style isn’t all that bad I’m just telling you how I see it, It’s not bad, I’ve read a lot worse, it’s just not great.

If you wanna check out this story for yourself and a lot of others, head on over to inkitt for the grand total of zero monopoly money.

Hide and Seek

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