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LYCE Chapter Chapter 8 ‘The Rabbit’

Running out of things to rant about, I guess I could rant about the nontroversy of the Trump tapes, as if that even matters, the news will report on anything these days it seems. I’m half expecting the next headline to be ‘TRUMP FARTS IN ELEVATOR’ ‘TRUMP LEAVES TOILET SEAT UP’ ‘TRUMP SEES MAN SNEEZE – DOESN’T SAY “BLESS YOU”‘. It’s kind of pathetic but there you go.

Almost finished this, it’s tough keeping it on the rails, my mind just wonders into the woods some times but I tried. I’m getting there, my work is becoming much more grounded as I put more time and effort into my research. Makes me hopeful for nano to see my progression but at the same time I’m thinking I should have done much more research for nano. But fuck it, I don’t really intend to win, I just think it’ll be good to switch off facebook for a month and do some solid work like I’m supposed to.
No fucking blogs, or twitter, or internet drama or trolling, any of that bullshit, just me and microsoft word and all the other shit I use.
It should be interesting, my first nano, I’ve got a blog share type thing coming up with a fairly famous zombie author, he’s more famous than me that makes him famous haha, John L Davis IV, so that should be interesting. I doubt he took the time to read my book but I picked up a copy of his and it’s pretty serviceable zombie fare.

Anyway back to the chapter at hand and yes, quite a few references to Lynch in here, a lot of twin peaks, a little wild at heart for some reason. I think it makes for a fun read, if anyone is reading it, my reviews seem to be getting more eyes on than any of my actual work for whatever reason that is. Ok well I’ll go kill myself then bye y’all haha.

Ok as usual you can find the full chapter for zero monies on inkitt by following this handy dandy linkamabob;

The Rabbit

Cheers!
~

The sign read ‘Twin Pines Lodge’ it was big and blue. The same colour blue adorned every door in the motel set into the cream colour walls. It was a common looking L shaped motel with the office closest to the street with a few adjoining rooms connected to it. Then you had the double packed rooms adjacent, facing out towards the street. There wasn’t a pine tree in sight. Just the large sycamores spaced out unevenly behind the back building.

The parking lot was nearly empty, there was a white minivan under a car port awning on the right of the entrance. And a white Toyota parked next to the office. He pulled into a space between the minivan and a big green dumpster that was facing out into street at an irregular angle. The dumpster was next to an oddly placed patch of grass that looked like someone’s front lawn. It was edged off by a black fence around the office of the neighbouring motel that had a nice little desert garden made up of cacti and orange rocks.

He got out of the car and looked around for a second with his hand cupped over his eyes. A curtain moved from one of the upstairs rooms. James felt exposed.

He walked slowly towards the small office building at the head of the fat snake. It was a tiny building partially hidden by some overgrown bushes. He entered and right of the bat got a trailer park feeling, the floor felt temporary, made of some sort of panelling covered in a carpet. There was no air-conditioning, just a big fan on the ceiling and one on the desk next to a nodding Chihuahua. He didn’t suspect the rooms had air conditioning either.

The room felt even smaller than it looked and even James not being of an advanced height felt it necessary to stoop. There wasn’t much to see, a beaten up couch that looked like it belonged in an airport waiting room. The carpet was blue, stained and pulled up at the edges, the owner probably had a dog. There was a small coffee table between the couch and a chair that didn’t match either the table nor the couch. A few tropical plants which also stooped.

There were a few framed pictures of what looked like stock photography of Caribbean islands, Barbados, maybe Jamaica. Some religious iconography above the desk, a picture of Jesus with the catholic heart and thorns. There was a crucifix next to it, just to make it doubly holy. The rest of the wall behind the desk was covered in framed plagues relating to some qualifications in motel owning and hospitality. Awards that looked like they’d been printed off the internet with the name; Howard Blum. An alcove behind the desk lead into the back where the owner probably lived. It didn’t have a door, just a set of those hanging beads that made a noise when you went through them.

James couldn’t put his finger on it but the room smelled stale, like the smell of rotting insect carcasses under a hundred-watt bulb. There was a bell on the desk, that on closer inspection actually looked like a doorbell that was taped to the counter, the wire running down the side. The desk itself was of some indistinguishable wood that was varnished to look like a hardwood. But it was patchy work and a lighter thinner wood showed underneath. Ringing the bell a second time he realised what the smell was. Taking a closer look at the nodding Chihuahua on the desk. He noticed it actually wasn’t nodding at all because in fact it was a real Chihuahua stuffed and mounted on the desk with a heavy looking ornate base. The plague read ‘Fido’.

He rang the bell again and listened, sounded like a TV was on in the back. He rang the bell again and heard a stirring, like someone waking up. He heard joints cracking, ankles creaked as they took on the weight of the body above them. A slow shuffling noise approached from the backroom.

A gaunt figure appeared mechanically and slow in the alcove. He parted the beads and entered as if he was coming out of an elaborate Swiss cuckoo clock. He was tall and thin but naturally stooped with age. He was wearing a string vest that really didn’t cover a lot up. His arms were sinewy and bare and there were visible tufts of white and grey chest hair sticking out of the places the old vest didn’t cover. His skin, wrinkled but looked as soft as a babies. His face was long and thin and looked like that of a sad horse with flecks of grey stubble and nose hair. He had full head of white hair sitting back on the top of his head. The style similar to that of Bob’s big boy, the mascot of the famous burger chain. A sort of fifties style swoop quiff. He was wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts and some fluffy pink slippers, hence the shuffling sound.

He shuffled behind the desk and cleared his throat.

“Err… this is going to sound strange- “James paused, suddenly flushed as he realised he hadn’t given any thought to what he was going to say. Or even what he hoped to find.

The old man’s eyelids fluttered as if he was dreaming and he lifted two weary grey eyes and pointed them at James with their bowed lids. “My dog barks some”.

James’ mind went completely blank as the old man stared at him “Err never mind, can you just give me a minute?”

“Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type dog which I have. Perhaps you might even picture Toto from the wizard of Oz” The man began to chuckle to himself. “But I can tell you my dog is always with me.” The old man said as he shuffled back to his room behind the alcove.

James went outside and paced some, he thought about lighting a cigarette but he remembered he didn’t have any. Come to think of it he’d given up years ago, so why that craving would come back now seemed odd. Maybe just something to do with his hand or a reason to be hanging around outside.

There was a small shooting pain behind his eyes. He put a palm against his eye and opened his mouth wide. Turning his head, he took a quick scan of the rooms to see if anything at all was familiar.

Every room looked identical moving across from the office, that same blue door. There was only one noticeable difference about the room on the end of the single story block. The door was ajar.

~

The Rabbit

 

 

 

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Ensanguined by Patrick Zac – A review

This first chapter is great. It’s punchy, it get’s right to the point, it delivers but doesn’t all together rush it either.
One thing I’m really critical of is long middling slow boil first chapters. Sometimes they work but most of the time they don’t. I think the story should start at the most interesting part of a person’s life, I don’t care if they’re great at cross stitch or they got a b minus in history, If that’s not the what the story is about and it’s not interesting I don’t care. I want meat and this story has meat, buckets of fresh bloody meat.
The story is great, not a lot happens at the start, by that I mean you don’t learn a hell of a lot about the main character but it was quite a short first chapter. That being said her voice is very strong, acerbic and a little self-depricating which is why I likened it to Dexter.
Although the Dexter analogy is a double edged sword, because although I loved those books and the show and I love the first person style. I like being inside a serial killer’s mind. It’s been done before and it’s been done incredibly well. Trying to compete with Jeff Lindsay is like trying to wrestle with a miami aligator, it’s not gonna go your way. And although I love the style it seems a little hackneyed a little by the standards of a Dexter Devotee like myself.
That’s my only real criticism. I loved the jump from the date to the murder, just no time wasted, cut straight through the bullshit like a hot knife through butter. It functions perfectly as a first chapter, just gets right into it and delivers a succint synopsis of what’s to come. A really great hook, which is what a first chapter should be. So you nailed in that respect I think.
The description of the murder is very nice too, gory but not over the top, it’s tasteful but still sates the blood lust of the reader.
Another criticism I have is I think readers when they write women they tend to mistake bitchiness for confidence or character. I see this slipping into that. So in some regards I think you should make her a little more self-depricating like Dexter. One great thing about Dexter is his ability to laugh at himself, which allows him to be the monster but still allows him to be likeable.

Final thoughts, I actually think this is something I could write, the style is a mirror of mine in some respects and I’ve dreamed of writing Dexter fanfiction this might be the inspiration or the push I need to do that. The last book just left a hole that needs to be filled by something.
I loved it, keep it up!

If you wanna check it out for yourself, head on over to inkitt to read Ensanguined and Patrick’s other stories for free.

3

LCYE Chapter 7 ‘Sinnerman’

Hello hello, back again with another chapter of this trippy dippy attempt at a psychological thriller. I think its shaping up nicely. By that I mean spiralling out of control into a complete surreal David Lynch parody clusterfuck but atleast I’m having fun. It’s something to do. And since I’ve sort of run out of things to rant about and there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting going on that isn’t american presidential election related so I’ll just keep writing and throwing that at you. Not like you want to hear my unfetted opinion anyway, I’m pretty much talking to myself.

This blog has sort of become just an insane time captual of my gradual decline, like some stardate log on a doomed space vessel heading to the sun and possible alien rape.

It could be worse right, I could be the person taxed with keeping whatever Hillary Clinton is alive and fed with bugs and mice.

That being said… is a phrase that’s over used these days I noticed, that being said here is the chapter in question. Sinnerman named after the song of the same name, we get a little window into the psychology of the killer but not really. It’s a fun if cliche’d autopsy exposition scene. Done a million times in almost every crime show/movie but it never gets old. Hopefully I kept it fresh, if not, oh well.

As always you can read the full chapter and all subsequent chapters on my inkitt page for the one time offer of zero shekels down do not pass go do not collect three hundred rare Pepes #notallpepes.

Sinnerman

~

Con paced back and forth in his expensive suit at the side of the road. He shook his head as he hung it. Casting a weary glance at the big open plot of grassland at the side of the road.
He stumbled up onto the uneven grassy embankment to look out at the horizon. It was mid-morning and hot. The sun was pregnant in the sky, squatting on the California mountain range. He took a deep breath as and shook his head again. So much emptiness. There was only small wire fence running along the side of the road accompanied by the telephone poles running parallel. A large grain silo in the distance. He was surprised anyone lived here in all this emptiness. All that light brown grass all that fresh air, he stole away one wild west fantasy and let it go again.

After another few minutes of stamping his feet and licking his lips he walked across the street to the black Lincoln.

Harri was sitting on the hot hood with her sunglasses on, a pair of cheap truck stop aviators. Her arms folded as she put all her weight on her heels and her sensible half heeled shoes.

“Feelin’ better?” She called out.

“Sorry, just getting car sick.” He flashed her a winning smile on that handsome face and then dropped it again. “You ready?”.

“Sure” She gave her own conservative smile and peeled herself off the car.

Con walked bow legged towards the large flat building behind the parked Lincoln. Harri followed smiling and shaking her head.

The Riverside county coroner’s office was a large rectangular building. It was fairly modern looking in some respects, old in others. It was tan stucco all the way around sitting atop a large glass front that wrapped around the whole building making it look like an uneven wedding cake. The windows all looked black from the glare. Riverside County Sheriff’s Coroner embossed in big silver letters on the side of the building.

The surrounding greenery was well kept to a point. The grass had dry desert bald patches but that was to be expected. A few clusters of cypress trees were dotted around. Maybe to give the impression that this wasn’t the middle of nowhere and civilisation would greet you a few miles in either direction. Either side a great distance apart was a post office and what looked like a stationery store.

The entrance was another big rectangular box which jutted out in an awkward L shape. There was a strange red outcropping over the door. It looked like a red piece of prepacked cheese slice hanging from a sandwich at a jaunty angle. The whole building gave off an aura of flat-pack furniture.

Con waited for Harri at the door turning to shield his eyes and scrunch his face up, he looked pale and a little sickly. Harri brushed past him as she broke the seal on the door which made a sucking hissing sound that gave way to a cool blast of air conditioning. Thus completing the illusion of a walk in freezer.

Inside it was modern and simple. There was a small waiting area with a wooden table and matching furniture. A flustered middle age woman with an eighties haircut and blue blazer sat at a small light wood reception desk. A phone pressed tightly to her ear.

Harri did her usual bit as she liked to do. She strode up to the reception desk and flashed her laminate.

“FBI, you’re expecting us”

The flustered woman had no time to think and just nodded furiously and blurted out “Err room 3b, end of the hall”.

Harri smiled politely and quickstepped down the hall followed by a queasy looking Con squinting at the halogen lights.

It smelled like a hospital, but the smell of cleaning products was much stronger. As if the walls were soaked in it or there was bleach in the sprinkler system.

Harri marched down the narrow hallway, she could feel it getting colder. She knew that had to be a step in the right direction. The floors in the lobby were that locking wood flooring, now it was all clean squeaky linoleum like a hospital. The walls were all white with a few tasteful paintings and bulletins dotted about. Con plodded on behind her as she stalked the halls looking for 3b. She found it, it was a large stainless steel sliding door with a little porthole window at the side. She looked inside through the foggy window. She could see mounds of bodies wrapped up in see through plastic. They all looked like props in a scary movie lying on stainless steel shelves with raised lips.

“Oh you’re here” A shy perky voice behind her croaked out.

A small fat man in a lab coat peaked out from an office door on the other side of the hall. There was more of that pale wood lining the windows in the office and the writing surfaces. All the work surfaces were stainless steel.

“FBI right?” The small man said.

“Uh huh, Special agent Harriet Jaguer and this is my partner, Special Agent Con Folsome.” Con shambled along just as she introduced him. He looked a little better, the cold seemed to straighten out some of the wrinkles on his suit and his face. He was just in time for a vigorous handshake from a pair of very sweaty and inextricably hairy hands.

“Gary Dole, it’s good to meet you folks, don’t get many of you men in black fellas out here”.

The little man was bald and had the greying stubble of a plumber all over his face. A set of wire framed reading glasses resting atop his head. His face looked like someone had taken silly putty and put it on a boiled egg and frozen it. Squishy looking features that were left to set hard. A stubby nose and tight rounded lips on a small alert face.

Sinnerman

 

 

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Draco’s Demon a fanfiction by Laz. R. Gray – A review

Sorry I couldn’t resist.

I’m just too big a fan of Constantine not to read and review some fanfic. Not that into Potter but it’s decent. I know you wanted a review on your earthquake story but as the title says, I couldn’t resist.
I was actually really impressed with the overall plot right off the bat. A lot of the negative comments I have for stories I read on inkitt are that nothing tends to happen in the first chapter. Like they’re just kicking their legs waiting for the story to get going, they don’t get that the story has to get going from the start or it won’t garner enough interest for people to read the second.
But this swept me up from the start. I’m a big fan of Constantine, Hellblazer is one of my favourite if not my favourite comic of all time. I absolutely love Constantine and if anyone asks my favourite DC character, they say Batman I say John Constantine haha (tips pretentious twat cap).
So the start was great, it felt almost like a neo-noir Harry Potter. Lots of fun fan service and the cheeky scouse magic con-man being his typical caddish self.
The writing style is very competent and confident, it’s very functional, it feels practiced and wasn’t overly verbose or cringeworthy.
Technical writings skills were spot on, it was very easy to read and I didn’t see any typos or grammatical errors. There’s a bit where the dialogue of the demon rhymes with the description of his voice but I’m pretty sure that was intentional. The urge to rhyme is addictive.
Ok no some of the negative points. I have to say although there was a lot going on it seemed pretty safe and by the numbers. It felt a little fanfictiony and it didn’t feel like it took any risks or did anything different. I mean I know the HP world is strictly pg-13 or whatever but that’s not Constantine’s world. So when I see John Constantine going to Hogwarts I want Hermione naked on an alter covered in pig’s blood haha.
I just felt it was a little weak, not as edgy as a Constantine fan like me would like, gotta channel some edgelordiness from the man himself Alan Moore haha.
Also I found Constantine was a little too smug, I mean I know he is pretty happy with himself most of the time but it was a little over the top although I loved the hint at him shagging Harry’s mum, that was nice haha.
Overall it was a lot of fun, maybe my expectations were just a little too high.

If you wanna check out the whole story for yourself head on over to inkitt to read it for free.

Draco’s Demon

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Green Sunday Chapter 11 Eggs, hash and grits (Edited)

Yo yo yo people. Don’t know what I was going for or why the big font today but fuck it. I’m back with another edited chapter. My editor is back from vacation or wherever she went. Probably battling the forces of evil in japan, fighting godzilla or something. But she’s back and hence a wild new chapter has emerged. First thing she said was the beginning sucked but she seemed to like the rest of it, thankfully the beginning is short haha.
And here it is a voila’.

Only seven chapters left, as usual follow the link to the full chapter in a more elegant format. Hopefully I’ll be going live with it on amazon sometime next year so keep an eye out for that.

Eggs, hash and grits.

~
The smell of sweat and blood and tears, the sound bare of feet on a concrete floor. Soft flesh and bone colliding. A loud chorus of people shouting and smoking and drinking. The smell of motor oil and leather hanging in the stale air. A group of people were huddled around two half-naked men knocking the shit out of each other.

“Where the fuck is Bernie?” Mojang hissed as he reclined on a large, high-backed office chair. The wheels and stand were broken. but he sat on it as if it were a low throne. A sexy biker chick in her underwear straddled him.

She leant over him with a needle and a trail of dental floss, and delicately sewed up what was left of his eye.

“Keep still baby,” she said as she pressed her slinky tattooed flesh against his.

Mojang had set himself up in a garage on the far side of town. The smell of motor oil, and the tools and spare parts clanging, put his mind at ease.

He’d holed up in the dilapidated office and the rest of his crew were getting lit on the garage floor. They took out a couple of scrappy survivors they’d picked up on their day’s raiding and set up a little fight club.

There was a ring of drunken bikers on the concrete floor of the shop. They surrounded a skinny office clerk as he pounded the cartilage of a fat barista against the concrete floor, until a satisfying, greasy, wet, snapping sound cut a swathe through the loud, drunken crowd. The clerk pounded his sweaty mitts into the stubbly fat face of the barista against the grey concrete: hot, wet, slapping sounds of meat and bone colliding on the cold, wet floor; rivulets of muddy crimson blood that would make Jackson Pollock cry manly tears. Eventually he stopped shaking and a viscous red bile started pouring from his nose and mouth.

“We got a winner!” A hairy biker in a leather waistcoat picked up the dazed office clerk by his slick, skinny wrist, propping him up. The office clerk, almost unconscious, panted out a relieved smile as his eyes rolled back in his skull.

Bernie watched from a darkened corner as they took the ‘winner’ and threw his almost lifeless body into the net of half-dead, twitching corpses, laughing as they did it.

Bernie perched in the corner next to an old payphone bolted to the wall. He rested the receiver against his ear and spoke softly.

“I hear you…tomorrow…can’t wait.” He tried to hold a smile back, tightening his face as he looked about the dim garage, lit only by unwieldy camp fires and generator-operated standing lights. He hung up the phone with a tight, satisfying click.

As the crowd got a little quieter, coming down off their wave of excitement, Bernie could hear his name being shouted.

“Bernie! Get your fat Jew ass in here!”

Bernie unfolded his arms and sighed with icy aggression as he peeled himself off the cold, concrete wall of the garage.

He popped the door of the office open. It was one of those thin plastic doors you were afraid you might yank right off. He stuck his head around the door like a temp.

“You call me?”

“Take a seat,” Mojang said, through the girl still straddling him, sewing up his eye. He didn’t move from his seat.

“There isn’t another chair in here”

“Then stand,” Mojang said as he moved the half-naked girl off his crotch. “Two minutes.”

The girl flounced out of the small office. She dragged a feminine, two-day-old musk behind her as she shut the door with a definitive bang.

“Was there something?”  Bernie said as he turned around looking at the closed door, his eyes careless.

“How does it look?” Mojang spoke to a rear view bike mirror he held up in front of his face. He tilted it down, revealing his sewn up eye. It was swollen and bloody; it looked like there was a red baseball stuck in his skull.

“Like shit.”

“You talk to him? The man? He called you?” Mojang reclined in the seat and tilted his head to one side.

“Yeah I talked to him.”

“You didn’t call me.”

“You were busy.”

“Uh huh. Well, what does he want? Do they have the scores?” Mojang seethed, his eyes scanning every inch of Bernie.

“Err, yeah but that’s not why he called. Said there’s gonna be a drop. Not even a block away – good shit,” Bernie said, grinning and rubbing his stubbly face.

“’Good shit,’ huh? OK. We’ll take it, tomorrow. This whole town is gonna burn. That fat boy and his bitch included.”

“I heard about that. Some kid did that to your face?”

“You heard about it, huh? From who? The man?”

“Around,” Bernie snorted as he pulled out a candy bar from his pocket and began opening it noisily. “Some pudgy twelve-year-old fucks you up, people talk about it.” He smiled as he took a bite out of the candy bar. Strings of caramel and nougat dangled from his bottom lip.

“Uh huh, yeah. It’s pretty fucking funny.” Mojang hopped out of his seat. He stood a good foot taller than Bernie.

“You gotta see the funny side: you lose an eye, you still got another one. We’ll get him tomorrow; his bitch too, you’ll see. You want a bite?” Bernie snuffled with the candy bar in his mouth. He smiled, breaking off a piece and offering it to Mojang as he closed in on him.

“Yeah, we will” Mojang said. A vicious smile was stitched on his face as he clutched Bernie by his jaw, forcing him against the chip board wall of the small office with a dull thud. He snatched the candy bar out of Bernie’s hand and forced it into his gaping face, wiping it all over with a forceful hand. Bernie’s neck snapped back painfully as he spat out the wrapper and he groaned as Mojang delivered a powerful uppercut under his ribs. He slid down the wall, stunned by the sudden controlled burst of aggression. “Now get the fuck out of here,” Mojang said.

~

Eggs, hash and grits.

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The Eyes of Goldfinches by June – A review

Let me start on the wrong foot, this is never something I’d ever really read unless there was a massive messed up twist halfway through or something. Which I wouldn’t know because I probably wouldn’t read that far and it would take it being made into a movie for me ever to know haha.
But if it is like that I don’t really expect there to be much foreshadowing in the first chapter. I think the dialogue is good and it’s always nice to see a first person narrative that isn’t entirely stale and annoying. But it gives way to a habit of telling instead of showing. You had the main character just telling us how he felt about people when it would have been more effective to show it somehow that was relevant to the plot. Because to be honest not a lot really happens in the first chapter and this is the chapter publishers and agents will read and unless your hook/summary/blurb is really amazing then they probably won’t read any further.
It may not be your style but you may want to start at your inciting incident and work back, think of it like a film that starts with the character hanging from the edge of a cliff or something then you find out how that happens while he goes about his average day of being painfully average haha. It’s a little cliché’ but it’s cliché’ for a reason, it works.
I mean what really happens in the first chapter? He goes to school, he does some school stuff, gets a detention then meets a girl. It’s not a lot to work with but saying that the title is great and it’s what initially what brought me to this story. So if you paired the catchy title with an even catchier blurb/pitch that would nail it.
Because the writing style is there, it obviously needs an edit because it’s a bit sticky in places but it shows talent, it flows. The characters of the little we saw in the first chapter are distinctive and likeable and the main character has a good voice, very fun, very self-aware and smart. I like it, it works and I can see someone who isn’t me enjoying this a great deal haha.

Here’s a link to the story so you can read it for yourself.

The Eyes of Goldfinches

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Ladies Close Your Eyes Chapter 5 ‘Hole in the Silk’ (Raw)

Ok this in the overall book when it’s done will be the start of part 2. This is where we get introduced to the side plot with the fbi characters I pulled out of my hairy well-toned ass. Originally this story was intended as a small comic maybe around 3/4 issues long so I didn’t feel the need to go into depth and have characters investigating the murders from the other side for context but now I have free reign to do whatever the fuck I want. And goddamit I want slightly weird fbi agents looking at dead hookers!

So here’s the start of that, my main inspiration for them comes from movies like Surveillance and again tv shows like True Detective. So I wanted introverted slightly quirky people who could do the job of a toughed fed.

Updates on general shit, my day job has gotten a little crazy right now, hence the lack of content but I’m still going strong making that paper to fritter away on editors and marketing schemes. I was thinking of just giving away free money and see how that works, bribe motherfuckers to read my shit haha.

Also been reading a fellow zombie authors book and I’m actually really genuinely enjoying it. It’s like the walking dead novels but good haha. So I plan on doing a review for that sometime in the future if all goes well.

As always you can check out this whole chapter for the exclusive price of no monies on inkitt with the link provided.

Hole in the Silk

~

A black Lincoln town car pulled up along a dirt road on Riverview drive in Jurupa valley CA.

The car parked on the sidewalk in front of two green plastic garbage bins. The sidewalk consisted of a curb bracketing a patch of dirt and grass from the road. It was way out near the train tracks close to Riverside municipal on the other side of the valley.

It was a small back road, penned in by verdant hills on one side dotted with lonely single storey houses on the right. On the left looked like some kind of little ranch with a white picket fence made of metal out front. The fence of which had a wreath on it and a broken mailbox. Large trees surrounding it on one side, a small wire fence on the other. A single horse stood with its head dipped under what looked like an overturned sandwich box. Of the kind of sandwiches you get in gas stations, chewing silently. A small single storey house shrinking into the distance. Behind the overgrown shrubbery and white picket arch ways.

A shapely black woman got out of the driver’s seat. She leaned on the car door and looked around with an air of disenfranchisement. She wore a dark blue pant-suit with a grey camisole under her buttoned jacket. Her shoes were sensible black work shoes with raised rubber heels. Her hair was straight, tied back into a loose bun. She took a deep breath of fresh air, as if against her will and turned back to the car. She leaned on the open car door and craned her neck to look at the passenger seat. She was pretty trying to look dower with a practiced set of frown lines. Around her mid to early thirties, but it was catching up with her quick. She had a wide mouth, thin drawn on eye brows above small downturned almond eyes on a round warm face. Her nose was a thin strip down her face ending in a petite rounded nose. She wore no jewellery at all.

In the passenger seat was her partner. A man in his early forties, slim but well built. His suit looked more expensive than hers, just plain black with a white shirt and black skinny tie. He sat with his legs knotted playing Sudoku on his phone.

“Bored with Pokémon go already?” She said comically exasperated.

He looked up and smiled a cheeky ten-year-old smile “Too much walking”. He was handsome. Designer stubble left a little too long turned into a small shaggy salt and pepper beard. His hair was darker, slicked back tight on his head, his hairline dipped a little at the corners but it held out. He had a strong chin which dominated most of his face. The rest of it was pure jowls which sagged just a little more each day, hence the beard. He had a slightly flushed colour on his cheeks and forehead. Thin lips and small sincere eyes above a large ruddy nose with a few chips missing out of it.

She let out a breathy laugh shook her head, looked down the road and sucked her cheek before turning back to him. “Are you coming?”

He looked up, brow furrowed sincerely. “Hnh no, I’ll sit this one out”

“You sure?”

“I’ve seen it before”

“Ok” She sucked her gums and made a playful chupse sound as he smiled and shook his head. He was still looking down at his phone as she shut the door.

She straightened up and walked to the end of the drive towards a yellow sign with an arrow pointing right. The road itself looped back around the hills to a larger residential area.

She took her time walking down river view. She stopped out front a black set of gates in a walled off area of dirt. Probably for the horse to walk around in when it wasn’t pretending to be a truck stop sandwich.

She hung her hands on her hips and cast a glance down Avenue Juan Diaz. It was a reasonably nice area, quiet but for the trains. It was out of the way, in the dark you could come and go without crawling over too much bubble wrap.

The closest house was one on the corner. A single storey with a big driveway. A white Pontiac on the sidewalk out front and little red number on the driveway. Another white car in the open garage. It has a little stone path leading up a raised embankment shaded by large shaggy trees. There were two cop cars parked ‘cop-like’ at intersecting angles across the curved curb.

On the other side of the street on top of the hill was what looked like a sprawling villa or a large sand castle with large arched windows in the front. There was a large white unmarked van parked out front.

Her head on a swivel she turned back to the dirt road with the yellow sign. She was met by a steel gate almost at right angles to the black one for the horse. The gate was open at a slap-dash angle and dug into the loose dry earth. She lifted it and eased it across, it swung loose and scrapped to a stop, lifting up a layer of clay dust.

The path was too narrow for a car, lined on one side by a drainage ditch of some kind. The path itself looked well kept.

She walked without great haste down the path about a quarter of mile in the direction of the river. It lead her down a steep embankment overlooking the viaduct. One of the largest in California she’d been told.

The viaduct was a great concrete deco construction made of several arches. A train track ran across it and little else. It was slim bridge almost like one you’d expect ending in a large fort or a castle. There was only room either side for a walkway. Probably reserved for maintenance on trains that got stuck or upkeep on the bridge itself.

The embankment was overgrown with a crude path cut out leading down towards the river. She praised her sensible shoes as she gracefully descended the haphazard path towards the edge.

As she got further down the greenery thinned out and she could see them now.

~

Hole in the Silk

 

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Archangel by Alexander Skel – A review

Not a huge fan f sci-fi or fantasy for that matter, I just find myself sifting through too much bullshit that doesn’t need to be there. I just read all this stuff that’s completely irrelevant to the plot about thrusters or some kind of magic barriers or something and I’m just like ‘Why? Get to the point!’ I just don’t have the kind of patience for either genre and taken seriously I find them really hammy.
Never-the-less I found this entertaining and engaging and it reminded me a lot of some decent anime but that being said I think it would be better as a comic or an anime. Because as a novel without any art it’s sort of generic, there’s nothing that really stands out about it. I’m reading the first chapter and I’m thinking about how similar it is to some other comic/game rather than what was different. The whole time I pictured it as a mission in armoured core or some anime more than I saw it as its own thing.
The action is great but its contextless, nebulous and sort of self-indulgent. It doesn’t have a point, it’s like a ten-year-old wrote down what he wants to see in a cartoon and then a really great writer took those ideas and brought them to life.
I really think this has potential and you are a really good writer, there are a few errors here and there and some sentences that had me like ‘Did Dan Brown do this?’, an example of that would be ‘The grenade exploded’ well no shit, it’s a grenade. But overall it’s well written and isn’t overly verbose like a lot of my work is.
But there’s no real story and in the first chapter it’s tempting to just gallop past it but you have to have some hook to make me keep reading, you can’t just have one fight scene and call it a day. Who is archangel? Why should I care if he lives or dies? This is why I say the action is contextless. Action is tense because we care about what happens to the character, you’ve given us no real reason to care about Archangel yet.
And what’s worse is this chapter I think has no real room for story that wouldn’t just be painful exposition, but that would still be better than no story in the first chapter.
I found the transition from Archangel to Rachel to be a little jarring but I like how you skimmed over the whole ‘Casualties of war feels’ generic bullshit in every anime ever haha.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, it was enjoyable to read and it really made me want to play a decent Armoured Core game, pity there hasn’t been one of those in a while haha.

If you wanna read his story you can reserve a copy here.
Archangel

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An Elephant by Julian Gilmour – A review

I think the prologue was a good choice and I can almost close my eyes and imagine this as a Danny Boyle movie. The prologue was definitely a step in the right direction because I can already tell by the pace of the first chapter that this is a slow burn type of story, culminating into something larger.
The description and the characterisation are superb, with a few little hiccups, I felt like some of the dialogue didn’t fit the impression I was getting of dog as a total meat head. Just some of the things he’s saying about movies sound more like the authors voice than his own. He sounded more like a film critic than a bodyguard but I understand you’re going with a tough with the heart of gold type of trope.
The writing style works well, I’m English and I find it hard to write about English people in general haha. But this handles it well. Some of it seems a little choppy, but overall it’s written well.

My only criticism I save for last, I realise I’m making a first impression of the first chapter and the prologue, but in a first chapter ‘stuff’ has to happen. And I think you realise that due to the implementing of the prologue injecting a little action but you also have a lot of time where you’re telling when you should be showing.
There are parts where we see dog’s thoughts and I thought that was a little lazy in a third person narrative. And particularly at the end of the chapter I felt an urgency to develop a plot when previously in that chapter it was just a couple of guys chatting about films and not a lot else.

I just really felt the bit where he thinks to himself about the bodyguard job it was a little shoehorned in and could have been worked into his dialogue a little bit easier than it was delivered right at the end of the chapter as an attempt to hook.

Overall it’s a very competent read and I enjoyed very much. I could see this being professionally published.

If this review sounded complimentary enough for you to do Julian a solid head on over to inkitt with the link provided and reserve a copy of his book.

An Elephant By Julian Gilmour

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