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Loverman Chapter 4 ‘Let love in’

Bonjour,

Sort of rushing because I’m totally consumed working on Diana, reaching completion. I almost completely forgot about blogging and proofreading other stuff. All my attention is on that right now and it really has to be.

All other stuff is taking a backseat right now until that is done and dusted and as near as perfect as possible until it can fly off to some cold hearted person to shit on.

Ok so that’s all you’re getting and haha, sorry about that but this really is important, this could be it and it needs all my energy and time and love and effort.

See you…

–

I felt the room grow darker and the air heavier as if the room were sinking into an inky black abyss.

 

Jorge leapt from his corner and gripped the writhing tattered figure with his huge brawny arms as Ericcson howled and cried “They were always there waiting! They’ll come for you as they came for me!”

 

Jorge seemed to struggle to keep the much smaller man in place and as I watched in horror I saw odd depressions on his dark skin as if he fought against some invisible colossus and then came an ungodly cracking noise and his arms twisted and snapped back as if he were an insect in the hands of some veracious child.

 

Then I saw Avery, his face drawn in silent horror, his eyes locked on the scene of the large Indian fighting with this invisible force, fumbling blindly in the drawer of his desk.

 

Another hideous cracking noise, sending spurts of blood and vile smelling marrow across the room, hot and viscous as it was, Jorge’s deep booming cries growing louder and then muffled and high pitch and shrill like an animals. I tore my hands from my face glued as they were by sheer fright and I saw his head squeezed as if through shrink wrap, compressed and then pop like a watermelon dropped from ten stories. The rest of his limbs spasmsing with some electric impulse, torn asunder by the invisible tendrils.

 

Avery, his aphable bearded face was white as a sheet and his hand was ever whiter as it gripped the handle of a pistol he aimed in the general direction of Ericcson firing wildly and hitting only the walls of his tiny office and me in my gut, the burning pain seering my flesh like a hot iron.

 

Then his hand was gripped by some unseen impulse and it was snapped as if it was a twig, the bone protruding out of the skin, his heart beating fast pumping out tiny spurts of dark red blood over his desk as he coughed and hiccuped the gun dropping into my lap glazed in a warm sheen of his vital fluids.

 

I fumbled the thing frantically with one arm, the other to stem the bleeding from my wound. The gun was hot and wet and I’d never even seen one outside of a film before let alone handled or fired such a thing. I gripped it in both hands and tried to make it hold still but for it’s incessant shaking in my boney fingers. I squeezed it aiming at the mass of opalescent tendrils stretching out from Ericcson and he vomited the vile things into this world.

 

Avery eyes bulged out of his skull as the invisible arms squeezed him, the veins in his face growing long and distended and then bursting, the blood of which seeping into his clothes.

 

I squeezed the trigger as hard as I could but it felt hot and slippery in my hands and it wouldn’t stay still, I had to fight the thing to stay straight and will the trigger to fire and the hammer to fall and when it did there was only a distinct pinching sensation around my neck and then blackness.

 

Only a feeling of falling, an emptiness, a deep black nothingness, tumbling forever and then a light, a horrible light and a screaming which could only have been my own but seemed to be that of a babies first, a new birth, a new horrible world born before me as I opened my eyes.

–

Read the rest on inkitt.

Let love in

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3 Ring Samurai part 2 Chapter 5 ‘The lost highway’

Ok well at least you couldn’t say my week was boring, went from being on top of the world to being under it, straight up into space and right now I’m falling fast, but that I’m used to haha.
Needless to say everything blew up in my face as it usually does because I fell in love with someone who can never leave well enough alone just like myself. And when they push I push back twice as hard as is my nature, not to be out done when it comes to being a stubborn prick.
It goes without saying that my life is a fucking joke and no one should try and emulate it haha. At the very least I’m less lonely than Lovecraft but that’s not saying much and loneliness would probably help me more than harm me. Relationships only seem to be a hindrance and a time sink when it comes to my work, filler, if you will.
Well I’m cutting that shit right out, that is until someone else comes along to fuck it all up again haha. Can’t wait -_-.
Speaking of my work for a nice segue, finally I have the final piece of Diana and I have diverted all efforts to putting the lady back together again. So I’m putting Loverman writing on hold for the time being and focusing totally on editing and proofreading and the eventual debut of Diana to agents here and in the US. I’m still gonna put out regular chapters of completed work like 3 ring and Cur but Diana must take precedent because that is the real deal. Not all my eggs are in here basket but enough of them to make me nervous so here’s hoping to the first big step on the this journey I’ve undertaken so many years ago now.
(Insert one hour of looking for pictures of clowns) Sigh.
Ok better stop talking about it and get on with it, all those rejection letters aren’t gonna write themselves.
See you…
–
Achoo! Pookie rubbed his red nose and looked around the saloon sleepily amazed how similar it looked to the one in the town he just escaped from.
“Ya know, they say when you sneeze it means people are talking about ya” Canard said as he sat opposite him in a booth whittling a piece of wood.
“What are you whittling?” Efron asked.
Canard smirked “You’ll just have to wait and se-“
He was suddenly cut off by the weird dog thing Garfield biting the end of the bit of wood and fighting to take it.
“Hey ya dumb whatever ya are! Let go” He said as he tugged at the bit of wood the dog was gnawing on “Ahh you’re drooling on it!”
Efron hid her snickering behind her hand.
“What are you laughing at?” He said.
“You’re funny” She said.
“Yeah I’m hilarious, would you buzz off kid, go play or something” He said shooing her away.
Efron giggled childlishly and disappeared from sight.
He turned around in his seat furrowing his brow and cocking out his lower lip. “That’s better, I think you and me need to talk some more”
Pookie sniffled not looking at him “About what?” he said petulently.
“About what we do next?”
“’We’ there is no ‘we’, I don’t owe you nothing.” Pookie said in a disinterested way.
“I saved your life back there” Canard had an easy meaningless smile.
“I don’t remember that” Pookie raised an eyebrow and waved his hand away.
“Yeah back in the cave- nevermind, it’s not important, what’s important is we need to find someone who can look at that weird mark on the kid and tell us what it means?” He said emphatically, his movements overcooked exaggerations like he’d put too much thought into them.
“Why do we need to that?” Pookie asked with his eyes closed.
“To propel the plot dummy”
Pookie blinked.
“I know a mutual friend of ours who might know something.” He spoke a little softer and seemed to lean forward.
“What’s in it for you if we take her to see this guy?” Pookie reclined in his seat with his arms folded and his eyes half open.
He looked around before leaning in more “I owe her”
“I don’t get it.” Pookie sighed.
“The guy owes me a favour, if we can find him maybe he can hook the kid up and we can part ways.” Canard almost whispering now.
Pookie sneezed again.
“Or we could just kill eachother” Canard said letting a little ice slide into his voice as he leaned all the way back in his seat.
Pookie’s eyes narrows and his fingers crawled closer to his sword that was resting under the table between his legs.
Canard eyed him and gripped his whittling knife firmly.
“Hey!”
They both turned to see Efron pointing her gun at them “You promised you wouldn’t kill eachother!” A look on her face like someone was turning the car around not going to get icecream.
They looked at eachother “No we didn’t” They both said in unison.
“Yeah you did, when we were in that cave and I saved you from the zombies and there was like a cave in. And we thought it was all over but then the leader was all alive and like ‘I’m gonna get you rawr’ and I shot him and saved you both”. She said in a matter fact chipper way rising at the end as if expecting applause.
“Literally none of that happened” Pookie said as he rubbed his nose.
Canard just shook his head.
“So you’re just gonna kill eachother, that’s pretty boring” She huffed stomping her feet.
“You got a better idea?” Pookie asked cocking his head to one side.
“I just might” Efron said. She quickly cracked open the revolver and proceeded to empty the shells into her dress which she held out at the bottom to catch them. When she was done she snapped the heavy chamber back into place. “There’s one bullet in this gun, you each take turns pulling the trigger at your own head until one of you blows your brains out.” She said throwing the gun on the table like it was a chew toy. “But if neither of you are dead after four turns you have to both be my bodyguards for life, deal?”
“Ey esse’ I challenge you to a duel hombre!”
“Who me?” Efron said starry eyed “What’s a duel?”
“No not you!” The stranger said “This gringo with the funny face!” The man said as he pointed at Pookie who looked like he was going to sneeze again.
They turned to look at the stranger, a rotund Mexican of average height wearing a sombrero and a flannel shirt with imitation snake skin boots. A big ridiculous moustache on his face, his smile sporting what looked like gold teeth.
He waited for them to say something but they just continued to stare at the odd character waiting for him to burtst into song.
“Ahem, allow me to introduce myself. I am Juan Sandwich phillysub Ramirez of the infamous Ramirez brothers, known as the masters of swallowing. Surely you’ve undoubtedly heard of us” He said smirking and putting on a posher accent trying to sound like zorro or something.
Efron, Pookie and Canard all looked at him and shook their heads.
“Nomatter, after I kill the wasteland famous Pookie the clown, killer of a thousand men. My name will live on forever.”
“Look guy, we kinda just got done with a wacky misadventure so can you just buzz off and come back later?” Pookie sighed.
“-Long ago when we were very young we dreamed of being in the circus, fame and fortune, travel and the women-”
“He’s already doing an anime backstory monologue” Canard said dryly. “Is this what I sounded like?”
“Ah crap” Pookie said. “Come on buddy can you give us the cliff notes?”
“Huh?” Juan froze his lips pursed, sweat beading on his forehead, totally dumbstruck by the heckling.
“Summarize” Canard said.
Juan cleared his throat and began to speak plainly, all the theatrics drained from him. “Me and my brothers were rejected by the Ringmaster because he said our act wasn’t original enough. But, if I kill you he’ll have to let us in and then we’ll be super famous and get all the chicks.”
“Thanks.”
“De nada.”
Pookie looked around the table and back at Juan and sighed. “Ok, lets get this over with I guess.”
“That’s what she said” Juan remarked.
Canard looked at him shaking his head “You’re a terrible character.”
–
Read the rest of the chapter on inkitt The lost highway
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Cur Chapter 12 ‘The burning of the temple’

–
 
The smell of smoke, darkness, crawling, blackness, air.
 
Dian Cecht coughed and spluttered as he dragged himself crawling and blackened out of his escape tunnel. Gasping at the fresh air.
 
“Well it’s good to see you again, old friend” A mocking voice said above his head.
 
He turned over, scrambling in the ashes, stunned to hear the familiar voice, his face black with soot and his eyes wide and frightened. He waited on his knees in the dark for the shapes to emerge from the smoke laden sky.
 
“Y-you!” Dian Cecht mumbled grasping at a clump of black earth beneath him.
 
“Me” Bres smiled atop his horse, his men behind him, looking down at the great healer.
 
Dian Cecht lowered his head, his hands splayed out in front of him. “You’re too late, she’s already gone from here, a day’s ride ahead of you, you’ll never find her.”
 
“Of course I will, you’re going to help me” Bres laughed and crossed his hands over his saddle.
 
Dian Cecht put his hands on his thighs and looked at the dirt knowing that he was right. “I may be a coward, hiding in that place but you! You are cursed by all the gods for desecrating that holy site!”
 
“Desecrating? Me? The king of Inish Veil?” He laughed looking around at his men. “Surely you are mistaken, it was a mere accident. So many candles in Newgrange, this was bound to happen sooner or later. A little mouse must have knocked one over and set fire to some old dry parchment and woof! The whole temple up in flames” His men who chuckled, all but one. Ogma gritted his teeth holding his hand to his ear wishing that both his ears were cut off and his eyes gouged and his tongue pulled.
 
“You should kill me now” Dian Cecht said almost begging, his hands tightening above his knees.
 
“Why would I do that, we’re in need of a good healer, we have a wounded man after all, Ogma show him your ear” He said turning in his saddle. Waving Ogma to approach.
 
Ogma tried to smooth out his face. Remove any of the disdain he was feeling as he removed his hand from his head showing Dian Cecht the place where his ear ought to have been.
 
“I can’t grow back an ear, not without my lab that you just burnt to the ground” His tone suddenly changed from wounded animal to righteously indignant.
 
“Tsk tsk, these accusations are very dangerous, we all agree it was just a mouse, don’t we” He said to his men who nodded and laughed.
 
“That temple was-“
 
“That temple was here long before us. Some robed fools with long beards decide it has mystical significance, it means nothing to me – or the mice as it seems” He laughed.
 
“So what is to be? Will you come with us or return to your burning temple?” Bres asked, already knowing the answer but enjoying it all the same.
 
Dian Cecht face gave up an elasticity it once had and he slumped visibly. “I will”.
 
“Good, take him” Bres instructed one of his men turning his horse to ride on along the path.
 
“You didn’t have to do that” Ogma said through gritted teeth holding his ear once more, looking past the king.
 
“No maybe not but you’re yet to understand the stakes of this game, allow me your trust in this matter.” Bres said softly.
 
“You could have talked to him.” Ogma said through gritted teeth.
 
“I just did talk to him” Bres smiled “What’s one dusty old tomb?” Bres breathed in heavily looking out at the lush pastures, the sweetness of the dew mixing with the bitter scents of smoke and ash.
 
“It sits in the shade of the stone of destiny itself” He cursed.
 
“And yet the stone is untouched as it rests on the hill of Tarah, do you wish to make a pilgrimage to it brother?” Bres turned his head, his voice full of scourn and accusation and derision. His eyes scanning Ogma up and down as if it was the first time they’d met.
 
Ogma could say nothing, his tongue seized in his mouth. His anger simmering below the surface of his stony grey flesh.
 
“We don’t have time to sit around flapping our gums, the fate of Inish Veil is at stake.” Bres straightened in his saddle, pulling at the reins of his horse, looking over the horizon.
 
“How is that?” Ogma shrank from him, his face twisting.
 
“Your job is to follow my orders, not to question them, now ride on!” Bres said sternly.
 
Ogma grimaced, swallowing his pride. “Yes sire.”
 
–
 
“It was the Fomori.” Abhartach said, his eyes fixed and glassy as if he were manically reciting a nursery rhyme.
 
“That fairytale again” Birog scoffed.
 
“It won’t be like last time” Abhertach scolded, looking at Birog as if she had grown another head. “They have a new king. In the time of Nemed they used force, might was all they knew. They forced the people to submit, enslaved them. They put a tax on them; two thirds of their corn, two thirds of their milk. And two thirds of their-“ Abertach’s jaw grew tight and he swallowed, his throat clacking dry.
 
“-Children” Birog shuddered.
 
“You know the stories then? You know what happened. “His eyes lit up and the dwarf became enervated with wild hand gestures. “The people, our ancestors the children of Nemed rose up and killed one of their kings in his tower, Conand. But their other king Morc retaliated and decimated the people of Nemed with a great wave and a plague that came from the sea. A cataclyism that scattered our people and changed us forever.”
 
“You expect us to believe all this?” Birog tutted.
–
Behold the rest of the chapter over on initt, huzzah! The burning of the temple
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Loverman Chapter 2 ‘The weeping song’

I got back the second to last part of Diana and I spoke to my editor after blowing my wad on the last round of editing and she says I should get it back soon, whatever that means haha. But yeah so that’s happening, that other thing is probably happening. Compared to how shitty I’ve felt for the last couple of months I feel pretty good, I’m really happy right now and honestly I don’t like it, I wish it would stop haha.

Maybe playing more red dead 2 will make me more miserable. Probably gonna do a review of that because everyone I know says it’s pretty underwhelming and honestly so far I can’t disagree. Like there’s nothing really about it that blows me away honestly. It kinda just feels like another red dead game, it’s not really that special. Definitely falls short so far comparing it to GTAV. I don’t mind the slow pace as long it’s building towards something and it’s immersive like Kingdom come deliverance. I loved the slow beginning of that game. Really need to do another playthrough of that game. I can’t remember the last time I was so immersed in a game.

Anyway, dying need to nap or do some proofreading or something.

Bye!

–

She kept up a dizzying pace through the old building, but I could hardly object to the brevity of the tour since it appeared to be just a series of long hallways looking all alike.

 

“This is the day room”

 

She opened a door that looked no different from any of the rooms we’d seen before. Despite that it had no viewing window and opened onto a large rectangular room with almost greenhouse windows on the walls and in portions of the ceiling.

 

“This is something like a solarium, they used to think the sunshine had medicinal effects, we use it as a common area, they have art supplies and games they can play.” She said directed me to deshevelled pile of soiled board game boxes and art supplies collected in a half closed closet. The room itself was empty but for a series of rounded tables made of a cheap chipboard wood with a few simple plastic chairs dotted around them and a few beanbag chairs. The carpet was a dull cream colour and the ceiling tiles were deeply sodden asbestos tiling with neon lights running in parralles across the ceiling.

 

I looked around the room as it stood empty, littered as it was with papers and crude paintings on the walls. The paintings depicting oddly shaped buildings. Or so it seemed, although obscurest in nature, following no known Euclidian geometry and copying no style I had ever seen before. Despite that they were quite skilfully reproduced as if from memory.

 

“Oh you noticed that”

 

She said spying my eye caught by the odd painting.

 

“We have a number of artists budding or otherwise that come here.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Are you a fan of the arts Mr Tilinghast.”

 

“Henry, please, to my friends.”

 

She seemed to scoff and then smile.

 

“I’ve eyes like anyone else” I said attempting something close to aloofness.

 

“The director seems to think artists are more susceptible to madness than ordinary men”

 

“Oh, why’s that?”

 

“It’s nothing he would publish for peer review, but he seems to think your mind has to be half gone already to be an artist in this economy.” She smiled and I stifled a laugh which cooled to a morbidity as I studied the sad truth in that statement.

 

I sighed in agreement and continued to study the room. It was bright which was odd due to the weather being as grey and dim as it was. The room seemed to glow with an eerie effulgence, it had to be something to do with the placing of the room and the windows harnessing the light.

 

“Please take your time to look at some of their work, the room is closed for today.”

 

I took her up on her offer and started to perouse some of the paintings, most of which were marked with the same signature. The scribbling did seem familiar but I couldn’t make out the name. The paintings seemed to correlate with the others, odd cyclopean structures, strangely shaped humanoid creatures. It seemed almost like the interpretation of a childs drawing done by a skilled hand.

 

“Closed?” I said idly not taking my eyes off an etching of a bust done in charcoal. The bust was some strange abstract creature that seemed to have the head of octopus and the body of some kind of reptile with wings with large clawed feet sitting prone on a pedestal.

 

“We had an incident the other day with one of our patients.”

 

“An incident” I aped thoughtlessly losing myself in the strange chimera like creature in the etching. Noticing then that were some very similar drawings done like but in what seemed like a childs hand, and still more in differing styles until it seemed to be something of a contest to draw the eldritch squatting thing.

 

I turned to her and saw she was motioning with her eyes at a patch on the floor. My eyes following her to see a portion of the cream carpet that had been removed in a large square with a box cutter a slight shadow of a brown stain on the exposed wooden boards below it.

 

“We’re having someone come in on Friday to replace it”.

 

“I see”.

 

“I’ll take you to see the director now if you’d like, he should be in his office.”

 

She led me down another hallway indistinguishable from the others we’d just traversed to a door with golden sign with the name Avery Fournier – Director Pink Bird Sanitarium embossed on it.

 

The door itself was a firm red oak with the top panelled cut out to make way for an ornate opaque glass screen. And as the light was shining I could seemingly make out two figures and could catch something of a conversation going on inside.

 

“He must be busy, should we come back later?” I asked.

 

“No he’s expecting you, he might just be recording something, if we enter quietly it shouldn’t be a problem”. She smiled and motioned towards the door holding her clipboard tightly to her chest and pushing her glasses up on her nose as if touching up a careful costume.

 

I clasped the door handle getting a slight jolt of something but not removing my hand. A sudden striking feeling of unease came over as if I was about to open a door to a party of people dancing over my own grave.

 

Opening the door as gingerly and as politely and inobtrusively as possible I entered with my head bowed like a monk seeking safe passage through some savage mongol land. But to my surprise I was greeted by a most affable and rotund looking old gentlemen sat smiling warmly above a great and bushy mustache.

 

The man instantly put me at ease with his effortlessly pleasant manner and way of speaking.

 

“Henry, is that you, take a seat old boy, you must have had quite a journey.” He addressed me queerly as if he were some old friend or an uncle rarely visited but gladly accepting of any such chance encounter.

 

Finding myself caught off guard by his amiable appearance at knowing me, I had but silent stammering in answer.

 

“You must be exhausted, where did you say you were coming from? Boston was it?”

 

“N-new Hampshire actually.” I said tracing my hands feverishly along the back of one of the high wingbacked chairs in front of the man’s small but neat desk.

 

Fournier’s office was little more than broom closet in size, a very humble room for a seemingly very humble and benign figure. But despite the size, the furnishing were old and eloguent, the smell of treated leather and hardwood was thick in such a tight space and nevertheless it gave way to an informal comfiness that was quite unbefitting an office of such stature.

 

“Would you like a toffee?” He asked standing to pass me a large glass bowl of individually wrapped toffees.

 

“Erm no- no thank you” I said smiling.

 

“Hmm” He smiled and sighed before putting the bowl down and unwrapping one for himself and fiendishly popping it into his mouth grazing his bushy white moustache. He smiled again and said “I must admit I’m quite partial to them” He narrowed his eyes and then at once as if he forgot something said “Oh of course, I’m forgetting myself, would you like one Zane?” He said lifting the bowl in the direction of the wingback chair to my right.

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkittttt The weeping song

 

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Loverman Chapter 1 ‘Paint a vulgar picture’

Ok truthfully just desperate for content at this point and not really feeling up to starting Diana two, I dunno, I just feel kind of drained creatively, might be something to do with my sleep patterns but I don’t feel super pumped about it. And I don’t wanna start anything unless I’m ready to start it. So I’m just back in the trenches finishing this off, which is one of the stories I started and sort of abandoned when I lost focus of where it was going.

I think I literally abandoned this story to write the first Diana so I’m kind of hoping for that to happen again, just to be writing this not really knowing where I’m going then boom get hit the lightning bolt again.

I didn’t abandon this because it was shit, I just kind of lost my place because this is a story I didn’t write out a really detailed plan for, now I write out these really detailed chapter breakdowns I almost never look at but they’re there in my brain. But for this it was sort of up in the air and I can’t really place, I’m not sure what I was doing with it so it’s harder to keep pace on it.

Just trying to keep my mind busy so I don’t go insane, kind of ironic considering the subject matter. I do love Lovecraft but I dunno it feels sort of hollow copying him or trying to make it into a marvel haha. I dunno, it just doesn’t get my blood pumping as much as Cur did, well I don’t anything could get my blood pumping as much as Cur did. Too soon for a sequel to that but I should start work on a plan for it at least, the plan for Diana two was finished ages ago, I just might want to go over it again.

In other news really enjoying the latest Parker book it sort of starts off as a normal Parker book and slowly escalated into an all out war bringing back some of the best characters from the series, even one from the fucking dead haha. I tried finding info on this but I could swear this one character died in a previous book this books references and I went back and sure enough, he’s dead as a doornail, I guess Westlake just forgot haha. Which is so weird because of how he seems so good and keeping all these characters alive in his universe. To miss bringing a guy back from the dead haha. Maybe it was a different Ed Mackey with the same wife haha. I dunno, I’ll give it a pass, he is a cool character.
Also so stupidly excited about this but I managed to track down and pirate all the conan, shadow and solomon kane pulps and I can’t wait to read them. So I’m gonna be knee deep in like 1920’s era pulp fiction for a while, should be really fun and inspiring. I can’t wait to get into it.

Anyhoo, hours a waining and I need to do some proof reading, wasted too much time already setting up the Loverman Inkitt page for you to mosey on over to.

See you…

–

On recollection of that singularly disgusting building my mind is hesitant to reconstruct the image of the hideous fuchea paint. Which cast over it like a layer of bubbled pink flesh hanging over a rancid rotting skeleton of a building. The colour of which I might imagine of those many chosen people who were exposed to a noteably vile a substance as cyanide gas intended as such for vermin. Their bodies bloated and pink, skin bubbling like that of a suckling pig slowly roasted over an open flame. The bones of the building that of an old English town house, transported brick by brick from such old haunts as Glastonbury. Home to such tails of wicked faeries that would disappear unlucky travellers who might have the poor fortune to rest upon a certain rock deemed sacred to the cruel ironic justice of the fae folk.

 

To this day I have seldom the choice to replay this ‘event’ over and over in my head. As it was this soggy new England morning in maine that I was to lose my grip on the mortal coil for better or worse.

 

It was a notably wet early morning that I was to set foot on the grounds of the Pink Bird mental asylum as it stood in the October of 1994 in the new England town of Presque isle maine.

 

Having graduated from a university of note some years before I was applying for a newly opened position at the facility. I’d hasten to add I had grown irritated at relaying which university I’d graduated from. As it seemed to invoke strange and morbid fascination from anyone that heard the name which is why I refuse to mention the accursedly wicked place even in these notes I scrawl now. Strange rumours dogged it of doctors coming from there possible forty years hence conducting strange research into the reanimation of dead flesh. I had no interest in such study for it was the mind that interested me. It became increasingly more irritating as people seemed to imbue me with vicarious curiosity at the history and rumours that abound said university of which I deem to remain nameless. It’s past neither in my time there nor in my present state interested me at all.

 

That being said I can’t help remarking on my present predicament and wandering if the accursed place had some hand in my misfortune.

 

I approached the building which I had remarked looked like a corpse prepared hastily for an open casket viewing. A make over having possibly taken place in the early seventies had not aged well and as it sat off the beaten track in the back country of new England.

 

The garden was slightly overgrown, the hedges seemed to crawl out and attempt to swallow the narrow path that led from the road. A large bare tree stood in the court before the building reaching up into the slate coloured sky of that misty morning. The colours of the hedges a mix of deep damp greens and autumnal oranges and browns forming a mash of living and dying rott. The smell of which was slightly sweet.

 

I approached the building in an old crysler my mother had left me passing a few years prior. The car was in fairly good condition but wide and maneuvered like that of an old tugg boat on choppy waters. As I wasn’t the most robust figure of a man I was prone to car sickness which made me slightly light headed as the car lurched around the tight oval curve of the main court around that old bare tree with it’s dark grey bark.

 

I parked as near the entrance as I felt was polite as there was no markings of any kind and only one other car parked in a similar fashion. But notably of more refined taste, a dark blue bently with tasteful chrome wheels.

 

I ascended a steep set of slightly damp stone steps to reach a large but ramshackle white wooden door as cracked and creased as the rest of the paint work on the old building. The whole thing looming over my head looked like a sore open wound crawling with unwanted plant life like dry boney fingers peeling at the cracks in the saturated fuschia paint.

 

Taken with some odd ceremony I knocked on the old door and was met with silence and then a dull echoing noise I attributed to the age of the building. But sounded oddly almost like a person sighing deeply or the sound of sawing wood.

 

After getting no response from my peculiar inclination to knock as if it was episode of downtown abbey and I was about to be greeted by some overly verbose woman in a bustiare. I shuddered at the thought and twisted the old rusty doorknob which released a coppery scent and then popped open with a shudder that ripped through the entire frame and an awful creaking scraping noise that went through me like the sound of grinding teeth.

 

“Oh I’m sorry” A young woman said as I almost fell on her through the door as it gave way faster than I thought it might. “I should have warned you about the door, I heard you knocking I was just…”

 

I was taken by her instantly, a beauty of note, her blonde hair tied into a tight but full bun secured in place with what looked like a chopstick. A set of small reading glasses perched on the tip of a short sharp nose below of which rested a set of full pursed lips painted with a muted dark pink lipstick which seemed to match the sparse spackling of light freckles on her cheeks.

 

Her lidded eyes were green and distinctive under neatly plucked eyebrows, perfect eyelashes beating like that of a butterflies wing. Her face a delicate pale canvas of faintly german irish features.

–

Read the rest of this chapter on inkitt. Paint a vulgar picture

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Diana In the Dark Chapter 6 ‘Rescue him’ (remurdered edition)

Hey there,

Wasted most of my day making home made marinara sauce and meatballs and then I got a hair cut on my quickly shrinking circle of hair, aint getting old grand.

Mostly been working, I think I found a new job that could make a little more cash and still give enough flexibility to keep writing and I might even get to wear a cool suit haha. In the mean time I finished up the next part of 3 ring. I kinda didn’t get as far into the main plot as I thought I would and I kinda pulled a lot of it outta my ass haha. But it still turned out kinda good, I think. Not amazing, I don’t take it very seriously, just a way to blow off steam between serious projects and I think I might do the second Diana next. See how I’m feeling on friday.

The plot is shaping up pretty nicely, spent most of my time building the world a little bit and adding new characters which was fun. I know people might not like the whole ‘the little girl is the key’ plotline, think I’m ripping off the witcher making it all about Ciri. Well you’re wrong I’m actually ripping off Waterworld haha. Didn’t see that one coming did ya haha?

Nope and you probably haven’t seen waterworld either but I like it haha. I actually like it more than Mad Max in some respects, because Mad Max kind of shit the bed in my opinion. The first one is boring and makes no sense, the second is the best, gets it just right and the third is diesel punk peter pan and the less said about fury road the better.

Waterworld was just a nice one a done movie and I really liked the concept and I’m sort of borrowing the plotline from there with a little bit of total recall thrown in not to give too many spoilers. 

Still enjoying the latest Parker book although they kinda made my favourite character look like a bitch and then killed him off, like wtf but he’s not like dead I guess, I mean it’s just a book he could live but it doesn’t look good. But then again I don’t know when his book series is set, either before or after this and honestly I preferred Handy Mckay to Grofield because I always pictured Handy as just this gristled guy who was just a little less carved out of granite than Parker, who got out but now he’s coming back to inevitably die haha.

Great.

Kinda feel like this is gonna turn into the game of thrones of pulp novels and all my favourite characters are going to be murdered right in front of me haha.

But at least it’s not boring.

See you…

–

I stepped over the doorman and went inside. The house was dark and smoky; it smelled like weed and burning plastic. Loud music played; like a mix of salsa and dubstep. A mongrel jungle beat getting deep down into my veins and shaking them like a tensile rope bridge over a bottomless gorge.

It was a cramped house; a single corridor connected a series of dimly lit rooms. A bedroom to the left otherwise occupied by people in varying stages of undress and intoxication. Writhing like they were about to be turned into pillars of salt at any minute. A door on the right which probably lead to the front room or the kitchen and two more doors at the end of the hall which were most likely the master bedroom and bathroom.

The house was almost like a living thing, like I was walking on a carpet of raw nerves. There were eyes everywhere in the dark watching and not watching. Some peeling back to view the insides of their skulls. There were literally just people lying on the floor in the hall and I might have stepped on a couple of them.

People talked in varying dialects, crossing English, bad English and Spanish. None of which I could understand over the loud beat drowning out all my senses. It was so loud and thick it was like my head was in a box of trail mix.

All the while it was building and building, shaking the walls of my chest. My heart beating just out of time with the rhythm as we moved closer to the source of the sound. I clung to Paul as he walked in front of me, my hand in his, my face at his back.

I could feel the gun under his jacket; I could smell the strong scent of his cologne. A fresh musky scent, like pine cones and sandalwood. It was oddly comforting, soothing as we waded through this den of iniquity.

We entered the living room, which was out-of-place, lavish and well lit. The room was decked out almost like a small nightclub. A disco ball spun pointlessly from the ceiling, as the light was on so there were just odd dots of dim sparkling orbs around the room.

A large flat screen on the wall displayed one of the Fast and Furious movies, but with no sound. God knew which one, they were pretty much indistinguishable at this point.

There was a large leather couch pointed at it with a glass coffee table laden with a veritable banquet of Chinese takeout going cold. The varying smells drifting and mingling into one greasy mass at the back of my sinus wall.

They had a small kitchenette at the far end converted into what looked like a real granite bar. Complete with a stalwart bartender in a Santa Muerte mask and bowtie, standing with his hands behind his back. The smiling skull face stared out with empty black eyes in a midst a red tribal pattern. Very scary.

Was it like this every night?

The music was coming from two huge speakers connected to an iPhone either side of a fake fireplace under the flat screen.

We entered quietly, trying not to draw too much attention; almost tiptoeing on the hardwood floor. The safest thing to do seemed to be go to the bar at the back of the room. Get a drink and maybe try to gravitate to a dark corner and pretend to watch the movie.

Paul and I crossed the room, as if completely oblivious to the other people in it. A certain shy sheepishness had come over me and I couldn’t raise my head for fear of it being bitten off by a bigger dog.

“Hey,” a hoarse voice fought over the noise of the speakers.

“Who, me?” I froze.

“Yeah, you.” The stranger spat back.

I turned my head like a wooden figurine on a rusty cuckoo clock and looked over at the couch in the general direction of the voice. A moment passed, like charging feet over my grave. Stomping down the dirt flat and dancing and laughing. The little hissing voice inside the stygian well chuckled silently. Spitting into a crescendo of ever-faster beating wings rising from the deep dark murk.

It was him.

No mistaking it.

I wasn’t too surprised, I was in his house after all.

He sat on the leather coach, wearing a pair of baggy jeans and basketball jersey. Sandwiched in between two ethnic looking prostitutes.

Large Hispanic men who were definitely carrying guns or machetes or both under their Hawaiian shirts stood like bookends on either side of the sofa.

His face was young with oily straight features, and he looked very short sitting down, a wispy dark goatee on his chin, his hair slicked back on his head in a wavy pattern. He was very thin with almost puppet like movements, exaggerated and stiff.

I scanned the room again, feeling dumb and drowning in the spotlight. Pointing at myself literally, like ‘who me?’

Paul was at the bar already, ordering some drinks—which seemed like an ocean away with his back turned as I stared intently at Ruiz’s sneakers.

“Yeah, you! Are you deaf or something?” He leaned forward cupping his ear with the same exaggerated stiffness getting a polite chuckle from his ‘bitches’.

My eyes caught his, and he gave me an odd look, almost like he recognized me as he sunk back into the couch. I heard a catatonic purring noise inside.

Ruiz didn’t stand; just stared at me up and down, probing me.

I felt naked, and almost like I’d forgotten how to stand. Every gesture seeming practiced and awkward, how-to-human?

Did he know? Could he see it, could he hear it?

Was this it? Was I about to have a cap popped into my ass and spend the last few minutes of sentience rolled up in a cheap rug?

“Yeah, can you like get out of the way?” He gestured shaking the gold bling hanging off on his boney arm. “We’re trying to watch a movie here.”

“Err…sorry,” said Dumb Dithering Diana smiling like an idiot.

I moved out of the way, my eyes roving up and down to his, then his shoes and the floor, as I watched him watch me go.

He went back to cavorting with the pros and not watching the movie.

Feeling a little exposed and flustered I almost bumped into Paul on his way back from the bar. Two glasses of some indeterminate golden liquid was in square tumblers in his hands. Wrapped in white napkins with little black straws sticking out of them.

The bartender gave a little bow. Have to admit, I was impressed. A little.

“Sex on the beach.” He smirked. “Don’t worry, mine’s a virgin.” The smirk slid into a smartass grin.

“Uh huh.” I took a sip from the black straw, still looking at his mouth. “Let’s hope it stays that way.” That was dumb.

He laughed anyway.

Who said women can’t be funny?

I felt a little shaky, like I needed something to hold on to.

Paul would have to do.

We found our dark corner and sipped our drinks in comfortable silence. It was pretty good; I couldn’t even taste the booze. I wasn’t much of a drinker, and my fast metabolism made it pretty hard for me to get stupid-drunk. I wasn’t worried about vomiting on my potential victims’ Jordans. Or making an ass of myself.

Some time passed of standing and pretending we were having fun; well I was pretending, maybe Paul was, too. He was a lot better at it than me. Here in the lion’s den, he didn’t seem to have a care in the world. But…he caught me looking through the small crowd of people idly dancing around the front of the little bar.

My eyes drifted over to the couch and my probable prey and Paul’s face dropped as he followed my quick glance over at Ruiz.

In an instant he was that person again, a quick flash of a harsh blank slate, a vicious mirror. A cold malevolence flowed over him and passed quickly, his smile rolling back over his face. “Just gimme a minute.” He put his drink down on the bar.

“Wait, Paul, you can’t—” I started to feel heavy and dull, like wading through water. As if I was in a dream up to my knees in cotton candy. My head was swimming, a dim chuckle inside and a sudden mugginess. I was light-headed, the lights of the disco ball got brighter, stretching out like little lazer pointers.

He stood in front of the TV, it like I was watching one of the good Tarantino movies. True Romance, that was Tarantino right?

“Can you turn the music down, I wanna talk to you,” Paul barked. He stood straight up and played it tough.

Ruiz pretended not to hear him craning his neck in an exaggerated motion pretending he was trying to see the tv. Shaking his bling at Paul like it was some kind of magic talisman that would get him to move.

What was he doing, he wasn’t John Wayne or John Wick. This wasn’t a movie, was it?

My head spun; I put my hand on my temple, as the music rang in and out, I started to feel nauseous, how much booze was in this?

I looked up; the movie got worse as the doorman limped in, helped by some extras that looked a lot meaner.

He said something in Spanish, but it was drowned out by the music.

I just watched and sipped my drink, waiting for the good bit.

Paul just stood there, waiting.

Waiting for what? For them to make the first move?

My temples throbbed, and I could almost feel my fingers opening and closing. Losing sensation, the glass slowly slipping from my hand. I searched for a place to put my glass down and something strange caught my eye.

Now that most of the golden liquid was gone, I could see the napkin through the glass. There was something written on the underside.

 Do you see?

The drink dropped out of my hand.  Like someone stole the bones from my legs, I followed it down into the dark place.

–

Just another little sneak peak at the final edition of Diana, you’ll have to buy it when it comes out to get all that goodness but in the mean time you can read the rough cut right here if you can’t wait that long. Rescue him

 

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3 Ring Samurai Part 2 Chapter 3 ‘Shaolin Cowboy’

Ayo it’s your boi- I don’t talk like this in real.

Hello there fine people, I’m here again speaking the queens english with more lovely examples of why it is wasted on me.
Didn’t get any time to read last night because I was up all night pumping my guns haha. Which is why I feel wiped today, you always know when you went heavy when you feel like a zombie the next day but it’s good.
I had a good long sleep and I had a good dream, one of those great dreams where you feel like you’re in love and it’s so fleeting and perfect and then you wake up feeling like it was real. Then reality sets in and you realise that love like that only exists in dreams. It’s been so long now since I’ve felt anything like that and sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel anything like that ever again. I’m sure I will someday.
But until then I just have to keep going, keep exercising, keep following my dreams, floating lazily along the river of life.
I don’t really have much more to say, I must do some proofreading today nomatter my level of deadedness haha. Diana must be ready for her big day, which is fast approaching.
See you…
–
On the otherside of the fence there were no torches at all. The only light coming from spill from over from the fence and a dull glowing radiating from the walls.
No sound but a scratching a shuffling which both seemed far off and all around.
Then a sound he recognised, the laughing of the sword being drawn, turning to the sound there was a small pool of red light flickering into existence.
The eyes of the laughing clown hilt lit up and for a brief moment he saw something, or someone.
Lots of someone’s.
A quick glimpse of grey flesh drawn taut over an angular frame.
Pookie stood still and held his breath trying not to make a sound. Just listening to them, trying to discern numbers and strength. They must have heard him land over the fence but maybe the commotion outside covered it.
He inched slowly, keeping low on the balls of his feet. Creeping towards the flashing glow of the red eyes, trying not to look at the maudlin shambling figures in the darkness. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dark now and could see their outlines against the dull glowing surface of the cave wall.
Naked gaunt figures with pale skin peeling from their bones shivering in the darkness.
It was in reach now, he could see it. The sword had come loose from the sheathe in the fall. The eyes were blinking on and off and the naked blade was stuck into the dry dirt of the cave floor, the scabbard a few feet away.
He took it by the handle and wiggled it gently free trying to make as little noise as possible.
Taking it one hand he went for the scabbard and like a total idiot he resheathed the sword causing it to make that loud canned laughter noise. The figures shifted in the dark, the air getting heavier and the sound of sniffing and opening of mouths, the smell of desiccated death all around.
“Ah crap.”
–
On the otherside Canard crawled on his belly like someone trying to sneak out of a married woman’s bed. Through a series of tunnels comprised of robed legs trying to kick and stomp him to death.
Luckily kicking people in a flowing robe was pretty difficult especially in a big crowd of total morons.
“Just a little further” He spat trying not to let his lungs collapse.
“There he is!”
“I’ve got him!”
“WAIT!” Canard shouted as he crawled toward his stick.
And oddly all of them did, being the sort that takes orders. They stopped crowding and grabbing and kicking and just stared in dumb silence. Canard took his staff and used it to raise himself into a sitting position with them all crowded around him. “Just one minute” He said as they all surrounded him looking at eachother as if they’d all ran in here and forgotten why it was they ran in here.
Canard sighed and flicked the blade out of his staff and said “Ok continue.”
They all rushed at him at once Canard hesitated for a second then it became clear. He rolled his body forward throwing out his shoulder over his good leg and launching himself forward into a roll. The blade of his spear sweeping in a broad low arc cutting off the legs of all the cultists in a three meter radius of him.
Still not rising to his… foot, he did what I believe in yoga is called a ‘teddy bear roll’. Leaning onto his lower back using his hips and thighs to leverage him into another spin. Sweeping the blade up cutting arms and hands off and pointedly one with a decorative revolver in it.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this.” Canard said as his breakdancing spins picked up speed. Violently slashing at whatever was sticking out like some terrible blender from hell.
For a second he lost focus and his guts started to churn and he felt dizzy.
“I think I’m gonna throw up.” He said as the spin he was currently in started to wind down, in the centre of a radius of blood and carnage at least ten foot in all directions. Spreading out like some kind of expressionist painting dotted with severed limbs and entrails.
“Did I do that?” He said as he used his stick to raise himself to his foot wobbling slightly.
But there was something off about it. The men on the ground were still moving and some even were picking among the maelstrom for lost limbs and organs, seemingly trying to reattach them. This both amused and bemused Canard until he started to realise that what they were attempting, was working.
Efron too saw something she liked. She smiled broadly as she picked up an arm holding a decorative revolver. She carefully pryed the fingers free and let the arm drop to the ground, the arm twitching slightly.
“Ooh pretty” She said as she regard the gun with the care and finesse of an effienado. She held it out in front of her with two hands “Pew pew”.
–
Check out the rest of the chapter here.
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Cur Chapter 10 ‘Spirit is willing’

Bonjourno, did things a little differently today, did my proofreading and spamming in the morning and I’m doing this now, hence it’s later than usual.
No reason, I just like doing stuff like that haha.
So yeah been proofreading, I did this bad boy right here, and I’m working my way back through Diana After Dark and it’s going pretty well. I feel like I’m being really objective like I can step back and look at it as a whole, because I know how it played out so I can see holes and I smooth out rough areas. I think it’s really helping the flow. And I’m looking forward to fixing a few plot holes I may have left open later in the book, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I think after this segment of 3 ring is done I’ll focus on proofreading it full time until it’s done and then start spamming it to agents when I’m near enough done.
Been an ordinary week, writing stupid clown shit and battling depression and possible retardation, nothing new there haha. Just been feeling shit, like I’m enjoying writing 3 ring but it’s also fucking depressing knowing it’s really a waste of time because no one’s gonna read it haha. I know I’m just writing it to stay sharp but I know my time could be spent better and I really think I need a new job so I can turn some of this excess time into money I can use to hire more editors and see the people that mean the most to me, the few of those I have.
Not been reading as much either which is lame, the latest Parker book just hasn’t hooked me, its kinda just a bunch of stuff happening. This is sorta continuation of that lame themepark book and I thought it would redeem that but so far its a little flat but I really haven’t read that much of it. But there aren’t any characters or plot points that jump out at me. It’s kinda just treading water, which sucks because it’s referencing one of the strongest books in the series at the start. Where to get back at this Mafia organisation he gives the green light on a bunch of the people he’s connected to to do a series of coordinated hits on them, punching them straight in the wallet. Basically trying to show the outfit that he has as much power as they do in regards to control of their money. But that was a great book which set up quite a few characters who appeared later in the series and all the little robberies were great but in this it’s just Parker and Grofield doing some really boring robberies for pennies to piss off this guy who they think stole the take from a botched job but he actually has no idea where it is.
So it just feels like it’s running up a hill, spitting in the wind, pick a saying haha.
I’m just not desperate to rip into it like I usually am, I really need a new book series to read haha. Another Dexter would be great, maybe I could just read Dexter again haha.
Anyway about Cur, going over it still, cleaning up a lot of it, it’s rough but it has potential, I think I was a little overconfident with it, maybe overextended but it has something, I just need to keep chipping away at it. There’s something good there, I just need to clear away the shit and pull it together. Because in some respects it feels a little small because it’s really just a piece of an epic story. There’s no way I could do the whole tale justice in one book without doing just a big birds eye view without getting down to the nitty gritty. It would end up just being the mythology not a story. So I needed to get down in the mud a little bit and get creative to craft an origin to this war. And I think I did an ok job. I really only have one person’s opinion on it but he thinks it’s alright haha.
Anyway, gotta go do something else now, eat maybe? I dunno, what do I even do except write and talk shit?
See you…
–
“Why have we stopped?” Bres called out to the stone coloured sky as he tilted the visor on his helmet back. His armour was gaudy and extravagant, hints of white gold and gold leaf burdened a chestnut mare.
Ogma rode silently at his side aloft his dappled grey, his visor down.
“Sire, a swineherder blocks our path and wishes to speak to our captain.” A young knights errant said, hiking his hauberk up as it seemed a little too big for him.
Bres sighed and made his way to the front of the convoy with Ogmar trailing behind him in a terse canter.
The path they were on was a narrow dipping one lined on both sides with stones separating an embankment of rocky crags. The stones demarked a break in the fields used for grazing from the sacred groves of Newgrange. The village folk liked to have their livestock feast on the grass on those groves. They thought the grasses there imbued with some mystical properties. Producing milk and meat sweeter and heartier and wool hewn softer and stronger.
To turn back they would have to climb the embanked and loop around by crossing open farm land. Adding annoyance and further time to their journey.
Bres beheld the man with raised eyebrow and a sneering condescension as if expecting to witness a pig rolling around in the mud at his feet.
The swindeherder was deshevelled and appeared hobbled with a large white branch cane. Despite his deformities he had the broadback of a farmhand. His dark cloak covering most of his face and body, with one sleeve hanging loose at his side. A placid shaggy dog panting at his feet.
“What is it you want swineherd?” Bres said with the listlessness of a court maid.
The man rolled one stoney eye towards Bres and Bres was taken with a queer feeling as if someone were scything grass to make a grave. He swallowed it down and scoffed as the swineherder took some time to answer.
“Well out with it, I haven’t got all day, you stand before the king of Inish Veil” He said softly, as a light spattering of rain began to fall.
“Is that so?” The swineherder said in an almost mocking colloquial tone, his posture not changing at all.
“What is it you want peasant, speak now or be run down!” Bres said idly, trying not to look at the vagabond.
“I wish to issue a challenge” the old swineherd said his voice low gritted.
Bres sighed “We don’t have time for games or riddles old man and we wouldn’t waste the coin now out of our way!”
“I wish to challenge the strongest amongst ye to single combat” The old man said as if he was asking for a sip of water.
The men all laughed after a moment and Bres too could help but chuckle.
All but Ogma laughed, he instead bristled with a cool anticipation. There was something not quite right. Some drive or pull, some whispering in the back of his head that told him something was padding the earth downwind. Something waiting to see the soft side of a belly to slash. Some great battle lay over the horizon just waiting to cast his legend in bronze, his death in history.
“Do you hear this Ogma?” Bres said still chuckling “This swineherd challenges you to duel, do you accept?” Bres grinned.
Ogma said nothing and dismounted his horse.
He approached the stranger slowly tracing a wide semi-circle. Drawing the steel club from his belt.
“Draw your weapon stranger.” Ogma said cautiously.
“I have no weapon” The old swineheard said.
“A weapon!” Ogma called.
Another steel club was thrown at the swineherd’s feet but he seemed not to notice. Only after a moment stoopping slowly to drag it off the ground leaning over his cane awkwardly to do so. It was revealed he was a cripple. He only had one arm.
“Tis a brave cripple” Bres jested “P’haps he seeks an honourable felling?” Bres laughed, tugging at the reigns of his horse trying to keep her straight.
Ogma gritted his teeth as he felt a low ebb of malice coming from the stranger. An aura of hate kept at bay by a slow flowing of misery and disgrace at his pitiable appearance. His chest nevertheless swelling as he could hear trumpets of battle ringing in his ears but couldn’t explain why. The hair on his arms bristling. He could almost see the blood stained grass swaying as he looked upon the stranger, hear the thunder. He could feel the static air but he dare not make his feelings known.
“Come on Ogma take pity on the poor wretch, his swines have turned fowl!” Bres joked “He wants you to put him out of his misery, but it hardly does your honor any good to thwought such a wretch”. Bres laughed and rested his chin on his gauntlet as if to pounder.
“The knight could tie his good hand” The stranger said at once in a low drawling tone from unseen lips.
“What a good idea!” Bres said, his armor jangling as he slapped his thigh. “Tie your good arm and then fight the swine herd on fair terms and keep your honor, there we’ve settled it.” Bres smiled, pleased with his idea.
Ogma breathed through his teeth as he gripped the haft of his club tightly. Feeling the sweat on his palm then releasing it again, then tightening it again.
One of Ogma’s men tied his arm behind his back and then stood back as Ogma stretched his now only arm with the club extended. He walked slowly crossing one leg over the other circling the swineherd as his men cleared an uneven circle with their bodies and erect pikes.
The stranger did not move or adjust his footing. Only seeming to exhale and rise slightly allowing the bleached branch he was using as a cane to fall on the ground.
Then suddenly a flash and the swineherd threw the club with a ferocious speed and vitriol. It caught the crowd by such surprise they had no reaction whatsoever but stunned silence. Ogma was a skilled warrior and his senses were keen and swift and with his own great strength he met the blow. Ogma deflected it with some difficulty. The force of it lifting him off one of his feet and making his hand ring with energy, sending sharp pains up his arms and down his back.
But he could not rest. The swineherd was relentless and vicious taken by the spirit of a wild boar himself he threw his cloak soon after not stopping for a beat. Never once thinking one attack would fell the champion of the Tuatha de’. The cloak was heavy and sodden with the beast’s sweat hitting heavily and sticking. Ogma tried to bat it away but the cloak wrapped around his head. Without his other arm for support it drove his club back hitting him awkwardly around his shoulder just nicking the bottom of his helmet.
The swineherd was used to having one arm and all his movements compensated for it, never slowing or struggling.
Bres who had been laughing and smiling and geering jovially up to this point had grown silent and constipated. “That face” He whispered to himself as his own face drained of all colour and he took on the appearance of a ghoul. “Not possible” He laughed it off his mind playing tricks.
The man standing before them was not old nor infirmed but a man at his full height erect towered over them all. His face scarred and horrid, head bald, shaven awkwardly with scraps of hair missed dangling like that of a corpses. His skin pale and drawn and wet looking, clothes of mesh and leather, dark and fitted for speed. A sick sadistic smile on his twisted face. Eyes burning like coals with what seemed like a relentless savage rage, a fire that would consume all that touched it.
In an instant he’d picked his club back up and was on Ogma who was still struggling to remove the sodden heavy cloak from him with only one arm.
The swineherd laughed as he hit him in the stomach. Ogma doubling over, another blow sent Ogma’s helmet flying revealing his bonny face as he sprawled on his back like a wingless fly.
The swineherd pinned his other arm with his foot dropping the club carelessly by his head. Cur withdrew his strange blade from his belt, stooped swiftly and stopped to grin at no one. He sliced Ogma’s ear off as if he was cutting himself a piece of cheese. Ogma’s silver tongue wailed out in pain as he writhed under the heavy heel of the stranger.
Cur held the bloody ear in his hand and closed his fingers around it. he stooped again to put back on his cloak as the men around him said nothing. The sounds of their hauberks and plate mail jangling as they stood frozen said it all. Shaking, petrified from fear and shock and rage as they watched their hero, their champion defiled by one so pathetic.
Cur glanced around at them and laughed softly as they encircled him. Their breathing heavy as they tried to muster the courage to draw a blade, even one.
“Let him pass”
They turned to look at Bres as he sat atop his horse tapping nervously on his thigh.
“I said let him pass, would you besmurge your honor to kill a man for winning a duel mutually agreed?” His voice was strained and irritable as if the words tasted foul and burned his tongue. “An ear can mend, honor cannot, I said let him pass damn you!” He spat swatting at the air with his reigns, his mare swaying beneathe him.
Nothing but the sounds of straining jaws and clacking teeth and shaking mail knees and chausses. Fear and rage and a grotesque swallowing of all of it as they cleared a path for the beast before them.
Cur turned to smile at Bres, it could have been an acknowledgement of his nobility, a grateful smile. But it wasn’t, far from it. It was a wicked arrogant grin and it set Bres’s teeth on edge. He clutched angrily at his horse’s mane causing it to whiney and shake it’s head violently as he watched the familiar stranger walk away.
–
Checkout the rest of the chapter right here.
Spirit is willing
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Cur Chapter 8 ‘Thick as thieves’

Bit of a chill one today, its raining outside and I’m feeling gently melancholic – but in a good way haha.

I really do love the rain, sometimes I can’t sleep without hearing it. Don’t know what I’d do if I left the country to some hotter climb. I think I’ll only truly be happy when I move somewhere where it rains all the time haha.

It really doesn’t rain in England as much as people think.

I dunno, I don’t like going out in it but I could spend hours just watching it. Something about knowing that someone else is doing the exact same thing somewhere. Or that outside the world is bare of people, just all huddled around inside watching as it comes down. The steady rhythmic metronome of the rain hitting the ground and trees. Something about that really gets me.

I don’t have much to say other than that, not been up to much except proofreading. I think I really need to go over Cur a couple of times because it’s just too big of a project not to. It only worked out around 50k words but when I say big I’, referring to the scope. I tried to make a little fantasy story but the source material is unrestrainably epic.

I did borrow my brothers ps4 to try out the new spiderman game, I think the last spiderman game I played might have been spiderman 2 haha. It’s pretty good but it has some serious flaws, I might write a review when I finish it.

Down to this latest chapter of Cur, probably the most pivotal chapter up to now in terms of the lore and the backstory for the characters as well as the main themes for the story overall. No action unfortunately but *in Bain voice* ‘That comes later’.

This is sort of where the main story really takes off in terms of an actual quest and some epic duels will follow on from this. This is basically the end of this part and the next will all be about the actual task that Birog is to be given. The main story is of course about Cur but Birog is the character that carries the driving force of the plot.

Ok so enough rambling about that haha. I’ve been too knackered to finish Plunder Squad recently, that’s the name of the Parker book I’m reading, please don’t judge them by the titles haha. Thankfully kept away from the witcher. Not sure I’ll return to that honestly, just a chore to read.

That’s all for now, hope you like this excerpt and if you do, head on over to inkitt to read the rest and my other stories.

See you…

–

Hear- could hear nothing but the sound of the lapping sea and the gulls circling overhead with their monotonous chatter. The sea roared at his feet, the sky swirling with black and grey clouds. His mouth was open and dry and he could feel the sand under him but nothing else and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

 

He stared up at the clouds unable to move his head or close his eyes or feel any of his extremities whatsoever. Not the cold of the wind, nor the spray of the sea, only the sand below him shifting and the little things crawling beneath it.

 

There was no pain, or pleasure, or sense at all, just the sea’s endless roar.

 

Underneath him and he could feel his hair knotting in the sand, damp and being pulled by something. His feet too were being tugged by something out of his line of sight.

 

“We want the dead one’s boots” A little guttural voice said.

 

“We wants his eyes” The harsh voice tugging at his hair said. “Whats you need boots for under the waters anyways?”

 

“To trade” The affronted one said.

 

“You already have your trophy for the king of the deep, begone with you!”

 

“No you!”

 

The two figures continued to bicker and pull at the dead man lying on the beach.

 

“What’s that?” One of them said.

 

“Leg it!” The other said accompanied by the sound of skittering little feet.

 

And then by his feet a splashing sploshing noise as the waves swallowed one of the little things pulling at him and the other darted into a bush.

 

“What do we have here?” A new voice said, one that sounded like a bear and a bird talking at once. “There is life left in this one yet”

 

Time passed as the dead man watched the sky roll over him without care. The sun seen through the clouds turning orange as he felt himself being dragged on what sounded like wooden plank along the ground.

 

The sounds of the waves then replaced with the sound of a campfire and the blanket of clouds replaced by the blanket of night. The stars like pin pricks in the roof of the sky beaming down on his lifeless inert form. Only remnants of his consciousness left to stare out of a blank face for eternity as the rest fell away.

 

Cur awoke from his dream, his neck feeling stiff after being trampled by the black mare. He hushed himself as he heard quiet conversation and the melodious playing of a harp and the light of another fire.

 

“It’s quite alright, I’d probably rob me too if I met me” The druidess laughed.

 

“Our time on the road has hardened us, I beg forgiveness my lady” Tuan tittered like a bard.

 

“And the other one?”

 

“He fell out of his mother hard as a rock” Tuan chuckled.

 

The druidess giggled “However did you meet him?”

 

“It’s a long and very embarrassing story.” Tuan said.

 

“Well? Do tell shapeshifter” She fawned

 

“You see I was caught short, let’s say, a mating ritual -interrupted.” He smiled and waited for a response.

 

“I see”

 

“I was, how do you say, conducting myself in an indecent manor when some loutish fishermen caught me with my trousers around my ankles should we say. They bound me before I could change into something more formidable. There was nothing I could do, I was at a loss” Tuan said with a waiffish arrogance.

 

“Fisherman, in their nets, I’m sorry I’m not following.” The druidess balked as she talked into her cup.

 “Forgive me, I forgot to mention I was transformed into a salmon at the time.” Tuan said absentmindedly staring off into space.

 

“Oh I see, Oh I see” She giggled.

 

“Yes, so these idiots were planning on cooking and eating me, I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t have any of it. I tried to tell them I wasn’t a fish but that just made it worse. You see they were convinced for some damned reason that eating me would give them all the knowledge in the world. I have no idea why.” He said as he took a sip from his cup.

 

“Why didn’t you change into a Wyvern or a crocodile?” Birog said wide eyed, listening intently.

 

“I was already confined in the pot, and I couldn’t think of anything, I get terrible stage fright, all animals fall out of my head when pressed.”

 

“So what happened then?” She said shaking her as if the drink was getting to her a little bit.

 

“Well all the noise of me shouting and arguing with the fishermen drew out the ogre. Who I suspect was trying to take a shit in the woods at the time and he came out and scared them off.”

 

The druidess burst into laughter spilling her wine over her shoulder.

 

“I only suggest that as his trousers were around his ankles as he chased them.”

 

She tried to catch her breath and sputtered “What happened after that?”

 “Well I pledged my life to him as he inadvertently saved it. But of course sour one as he is, he didn’t take kindly to it at first but I was sure to follow him to one day return the favor. But as you might have guessed saving the life of a dead man is quite impossible.”

 

“What an interesting story, I don’t think I’ve heard anything like it in all my life.” Birog gaped. “But can I ask- why is he so-?”

 

“Cruel?”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the right word for it, I’m not sure a word exists to describe what he is. He’s cold but inside burns something truly- monstrous, something I couldn’t envision even in my dreams”.

 

“I know little of him but of his people, I have seen much.”

“What have you seen?” She said intently as bit from a leg of succulent roast pork which turned on a spit over the fire.

 

“I have seen Connacht in ruins as a crow sees it.”

–

Check out the rest of the chapter on inkitt.

Thick as thieves

 

 

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