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Cur 2 Chapter 16 ‘There can only be one’

“I HAVE COME FOR THE LIFE OF ONE!” a strange warbling displaced voiced seemed to screech not from the head but from the hip of the rider. -“BUT I WILL TAKE ALL IF YOU DO NOT SEND OUT THE CREATOR!” The figure was tall and seemed abnormally proportioned under a set of tuathan mail. His head and neck were stiff and motionless as if carved from wood and wax to look like that of the former king of the Tuatha; Nuada Airgetlám. The waxen face glinting ominously in the light of the magical flame sword and the torches around him.

The imposter had taken Bres’s thrown and what was left of his army. Now he marched on the last living souls that knew he was not truly Nuada. Not the Nuada that had taken this isle and renamed it so but a crude copy that nevertheless shared his flesh and would seize it by force.

“YOU HAVE ONE HOUR BEFORE I BURN THIS KEEP TO ASHES!” The hideous guttural displaced voice screeched.

–

Bres walked for what felt like hours towards the cyclopean spire. In a trance it seemed his march in time to some tune that no human ears could hear. A steady heartbeat exuded from the tower. Before he could fully process his surroundings he was in a throng of strange creatures some not unlike those from the ship. But others far more hideous and monstrous in aspect. So much so he didn’t care to look at them at all and just pushed forward through them to the base of the spire.

As he approached it he could make out faintly, what sounded like blades clashes. Or perhaps teeth gnashing and inhuman warbling of a crowd made up of the denizens of this eldritch keep of unknown aeons.

The base of the spire consisted of a gaping oval maw that seemed much too large an entrance for the squat toad like creatures he had encountered so far. Were they perhaps not the original inhabitants he mused to himself dreamily as he approached the sounds of combat in a daze. Drawn to the dreaming spire as if the waves themselves propelled him.

He was slowly swallowed by the grand maw, inside the keep it was large and cavernous, sounds billowing off every unevenly cragged wall. The inside was half castle half cave but also seemed almost living like it was part of a reef of coral. Or perhaps the inside of some strange prehistoric beast all bones and cartilage fossilized for a thousand years or more.

Inside there were more of those toad like creatures but from then on the mass was more inconsistent. There seemed not to be one race down here but a collection of malformed denizens that seemed to ooze from the very walls. Some on two legs, some on just one, some even crawled on their bellies like vipers or eels. Every one of them was a vile experiment not of nature but of some twisted intellect beyond man’s comprehension.

Their attention was drawn to a crude yet well adorned arena. Constructed from what looked like bones and skin of some never before seen sea creature.

Inside the arena an amorphous mass of grey shapeless flesh bubbled like porridge in a pot. Something vaguely humanoid sinking into the mass as it gurgled and belched. The crowd gibbering louder as whatever it was sunk deeper into the mass until it was completely devoured.

Immediately after that the crowd swelled once more and suddenly the former king felt a sinister energy amassing around him. As if a million bulbous eyes were focused on him alone. Instantly he could feel their slimy appendages gripping him. Forcing him closer to the hideous bubbling mass of unnameable horror.

He struggled against the horde but their collective force was as crushing as the tide itself, immovable and irresistible. Before he could cry out in protest he was himself in the arena face to indescribable mass congealing in front of him.

Panicked the former king cried out “I am Bres, King of the Tuatha, I come to seek an audience with my father!” He rose his hand into the air to display the ring his mother had given him, the ring that he was meant to present to his father so he would know him. But the ring was gone. Undoubtedly snatched up by one of the many slimy sticky appendages that thrust him into the uncertain doom he now faced.

He had turned his back to the creature to display his now empty hand, he could hear it; it’s vile belching, as it shifted and changed. Bres turned, his body stiff with fear, standing before him was an exact duplicate of himself.

–

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Cur Part 2 Chapter 13 “Rotgut”

Hey there, look content, see ya.

Haha ok, haven’t been super busy, just been in a weird place and my output has slowed to a crawl, I couldn’t even proofread. Just been feeling weird, all I’ve been able to put out is poetry. My emotions are just sort of all over the place. Could be the best time of my life, could be the worst, it’s hard to tell, only time will. So probably more of a content draught to come, just been spending hours not writing things, not being able to visualise it. I might need to take another break from it because I don’t wholey feel gripped by what’s happening right now. I dunno, just preoccupied I guess.

But hey gamepass is a quid again and I can play video games to distract myself yay. Sort of.

See you…

–

The snow crunched under foot as Airmed skirted the balding woods along the edges of the devil’s ladder. Taking the main path would leave her too exposed and liable to be set upon by bandits or ne’er-do-wells. But Airmed was used to the woods and knew them fairly well and could remain unseen and unheard taking her own path along the devil’s ladder.

The woods were stark and bare of leaves, the trees reaching up at the sun that blackened their bones. A bleaching white sun hung wearily overhead.

The girl was without fear as she hummed to herself calmly to distract from the cold and reddening cheeks. But there was something there on the tip of her tongue, some strange feeling. A twig breaking under foot caused Airmed to notice the stale silence. The whistle of the wind, no birds chirped or hare’s called, just the winds breath sweeping down the mountain.

She turned fitfully and saw nothing and then in the trees there sat a black crow, it cawed at her and flew away.

An unusual sound followed something akin to a wounded animal howl, a scream from a human garbled up in a bloodcurdling roar.

The girl instinctually drew a small short sword from under her furs as if she had her hand on it already. Expecting something evil and blood hungry to be lurking in midday sun stalking her steps.

“Come out now” She said almost to herself. Her eyes filled with fear but also a fatal resolve.

She looked about herself and seeing only snow and trees and dead leaves she relaxed for a moment. But then the noise came again and she could follow it. She trudged through the snow dropping her mead and the other liquid to give chase to the strange sound.

The horrible noise lead her deeper into the forest below the mountain. The noise sounded clearer as the forest became more dense with black ash trees. It lead her to a snowy copse deep in the forest. The sun was still out but it hung low and there was little light from the grey sky that would penetrate the forest. The trees stretching up like blackened skeletal fingers at the dull slate sky.

In the bushes there was movement at it lead the frightened girl to a small hollow or burrow dug into the side of a hill. From the hole blazed two empty white eyes staring at her.

–

The sound of sea lapping at the shore awoke the once king.

Bres awakened on a beach but where and whence he came he did not know.

“Am I dead?” He said as he opened his eyes and saw only water and sodden brown sand under him.

Bres rose to his knees and looking at the strange ring on his finger it all came back to him.

“Babd” He cried as he clawed at the wet sand.

He squeezed the clods of wet sand between his fingers. “I have nothing” He said “Nothing but this”. The ring seemed to hum strangely and he swore that it glowed for a moment.

Then an unusual sound like a ringing of a resonant bell but from under the sea. The ocean started to boil and bubble like a pot. The sea churning and turning white like that day he faced the last of the Firbolg on the beach and the sea ran white with the blood of his kinfolk. Half kinfolk, ex-kinfolk. He knew then that he should not have backed them into a corner, like he should not have done so with the people of Inish veil.

Something like a fish tail poked out of the water but did not disappear. It continued to protrude getting longer and stranger as it didn’t seem to move. It almost seemed as if it were a carved statue rising out of the unsettled water.

Then it seemed to fan out and get wider as if it were some tiny piece of some giant sea creature covered in a lacquered black shell.

As more and more of whatever it was rose slowly from the water it became obvious to him what it was. In fact seemed ridiculous to him both in not recognising sooner but also recognising it at all in it’s bizarre context.

There was no doubt that now he looked upon the bow of a ship but queer in it’s movement and incredulous in it’s rising. For it seemed almost like Bres was witness to it sinking but in reverse.

The former king of the Tuatha almost felt like a child, dumb struck. Wanting to rub his eyes in amazement as he witnessed the strange ship emerge from the sea. A ship of a design he had never seen before but also somehow seemed familiar to him.

It was black and slick like a deep sea fish and had no sails that he could determine, for why would it need them? Only fins and oars to traverse the sea.

The strange vessel broke ground abrubtly. Shifting it’s bulk on the sand like some sort of huge toad before coming to a stop a foot from where the former king was kneeling. He recoiled slightly and waited in the brief moments of silence that followed. Bres listened cautiously for movement or voices but none came.

A rope ladder was dropped from the port side of the ship, it appeared to be made from seaweed and hair. And for a moment Bres just stared at it.

–

Read the rest of this chapter and more weird shit here.

https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/13

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Cur 2 Chapter 8 ‘Harsh Realm’

I’m back, kind of, not really, I died, I’m a ghost haha.

Yeah well I feel like one anyway. Been a pretty rough couple of months for me sort, not really I guess. I dunno, just not been in a good place mentally and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. I’ve been struggling for along time dealing with I don’t want to say depression because that’s gay af haha but I kinda don’t want to live anymore like every day haha.

It got really bad christmas time because of all the shitty christmas shifts and the rain and not my ex not letting me see my kid for over a year now, not a skype, not an email or picture, not on christmas or my birthday. Nothing. I’ve given up trying to appeal to her better nature, she doesn’t have one. I know you’re probably thinking I did something to deserve it and I kind of did, I tried getting over her and dating someone else and she didn’t like that one bit and I’ve been cut off ever since and on top of that the new relationship also pancaked, so not a great start to a pretty shitty year and I’m pleased to say 2020 is starting no differently.

Writers block mainly this chapter took me weeks crunch out and it’s just ok I guess. I was mainly trying to find a new job in another town and just start fresh and try to forget. But I was inspired to start writing again because I fell in love with someone new and it was magical for about a week before she just started ignoring for no reason and it fell apart. I don’t understand any of it but I can’t get more than two words out of her, it’s really unsatisfying. And pathetic because I deserve this, I deserve misery, I’ve done nothing to deserve happiness. But I’m not evil, I try to be good, I didn’t choose to be this way.
Don’t worry this is not a suicide note haha, imagine that a suicide note at the top of chapter about cyclops rape haha. I’d never do that, I’d never deprive my child of eventually knowing who her father is. I never knew who my father was, he died when I was a baby, I can’t describe to you what that pain feels like. Like not knowing a part of yourself, missing something you never had. Knowing your life would be totally different if he’d lived and been there to guide me. Make me into a man like him instead of the shadow of him that I fear I am.

Yeah so happy fucking wednesday anyway haha.

–

The barbarians heart pounded with vicious glee. Keeping in time with the cold wet slap of his own bare footfalls as he ascended the spiral staircase.
Nothing but dim darkness stalked his steps as he heard no sound other than that of his own breath burning in his lungs daring to be free.
It occurred to the barbarian this must be some kind of passage, that was never lit as it was not meant to be traversed often. The girl must’ve carried some sort of lamp to light her way, or if not the creatures of this castle had no need of light. Cur with his only hand balanced himself along the wall as he ascended, attuning his eyes to the murky blackness. He stopped to listen but heard no other breath, no clinking of armour or heavy clad footfalls. Only a slight whistling sound like the last breath escaping a corpse.
He pressed against the wall from which the noises came. The wall relented without much force and slid away. Still it revealed only darkness, but in the distance he could hear the cracklingof a fire and the glimpses of dancing shadows.
A tight dead end lead down a grand hallway dimly lit by distant firelight. The barbarian strained to listen for voices but heard naught but the dying fire.
At once he saw it as if a black sheet had been lifted from his eyes; a grand and grotesque fire pit. It gently smouldering in the centre of a huge high ceilinged dining hall.
The barbarians eyes adjusted to the dim light enough to see that the dining hall was not empty. But instead lining the floor were the limp bodies of what could’ve been hundreds of young women.
The Firbolg eyed them coldly, noting their garb, they were young fair women. Some full tables of women with just red hair and another with blonde and another were brown and raven haired. They wore black robes and appeared as Tuatha or even human. Their skin took on a white bluish glow like the scales of a fish and Cur knew they were Fomorian or some mix thereafter.
But more pressingly, they were most certainly dead.
Each their lips wetted with some drink that had been the murderer. The last of the Firbolg did not dwell on this good fortune, Cur merely let out a low mirthless chuckle as he waded through this newly made mausoleum. The door at the far end of the dining hall beckoned him. Cast as it was in the finest bronze and gold leaf with crystalline reliefs in the surface, making it shimmer like that of an undersea gem on a reef.
He placed his hand on it and felt it relent as the wall of the passage has before. He grinned and laughed as he forced it open, chuckling wickedly as he stalked the crystalline staircase. The walls too of the tower were made of an almost translucent stone which no doubt was forged by some form of magic.
The barbarian climbed the tower tirelessly, grinning like the devil ascending from the pit on a crystal ladder. Looking out he swore he could see the black abyss of the night’s through the crystalline stone. The moon full and wide and beaming at him and then suddenly ducking behind a thick cloud bank to hide from the Firbolg’s gaze.
At the top of the tower the barbarian came to a door. A small door which rested ajar but only a crack allowing but a sliver of silver moon light to bleed into the crystalline stair case.
The Firbolg grinned with anticipation. His blood rising and falling with the tide and the moon at his back watching sheepishly, a vile satire he slowly pushed the door open.
The moon shone through a large oval window shaped as if it were a silvery mirror of the sky. The cloaked moonlight hung suspended by a light myst before it fell on a bed fit for a queen, or a princess.
Upholstered in a rich sea green silk, silks of the deepest blues and emerald made up the bedding, they seemed to shine in the moonlight like scale. Each pinprick of light dancing on the material as if it were the bed of a sea covered in precious gems. And the most precious gem a giant emerald that was an eye of a girl.
It was not a trick or an illusion, her hair cleared from her face the maiden was beautiful. Hair as soft and as pale as milkweed but as full and as bodied as the head of a dandelion or a sea anemone. Tustled as it was as she stared dough eyed with her one giant beautiful eye at the barbarian heaving in her doorway. She raised herself on her forearms in her thin white silken night gown. Blinking with her one green eye in the middle of her forehead above a pert upturned nose and pricked ruby lips. Her skin so soft and white it was almost blue, and when the moonlight hit it it seemed to become as translucent as the stone that made up her tower.
“What are you doing here?” The familiar whispered voice said.
But the Firbolg had no sympathies nor words for the girl. For he could hear nought over his own heart beat pounding in his ears and the rushing swelling tide hitting the rocks below. The moon light filling him with purpose as he lurched towards the bed. A sardonic low cackle in the back of his throat rising and a grin spreading across his wicked demon face.
–

Read the rest of this chapter over on inkitt https://www.inkitt.com/stories/action/300249/chapters/8

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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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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
0

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

 

 

0

Diana After Dark Chapter 2 ‘Do you see what I see?’

Yeah more of these lazy stalling tactics haha. Well is it laziness or do I just want to take my time and make sure the proofreading of Cur is perfect before I put out another chapter, no you’re right it’s laziness.

But I felt like I’ve been putting off proofreading this pitch stuff, which is arguably more important. And I was for a good reason, I think it’s good to let something sit for awhile and then come back to it with fresh eyes. You find a lot more of the mistakes that way.

Still happily can say I’ve read no witcher in a couple of days and my polish friend who got me into the witcher told me the next book is the most boring of all so I can’t wait to slog through this to get to that… yay.

I dunno, I just feel like I have to do something to escape inevitable depression, I have to keep moving forward, to stop or slow is death.

I’m still rocking Cur, I’m about over the hump now working my way into the home stretch and into the real meat of the story, which I think is fucking epic but I’m biased haha.

Because up to this point it’s been pretty apocryphal, building my own story around a character that was meant to die in the original literature that I revived sort of creating an alternate timeline. So this is when we’re about to start getting into my dramatisation or interpretation of the actual mythology and it’s pretty awesome. I actually already started writing it awhile ago because I was gonna slot it in right at the start.

But then my buddy said I should move it to the end as like a reveal and a part of me thought it would be better at the part because it’s a little bit of an obvious twist in my opinion and I thought it might be cheesier than it would be epic. But now as I’ve built up to it in the story I think it will be really cool. If readers feel half as pumped as I did writing it it’ll hit the mark.

Yeah so here’s the next edited and double proof read chapter of Diana after dark, this should be what professional agents will read so if there are still mistakes I’m pretty much fucked. But I’m being a lot more patient and conscientious this time around. The last couple of times I jumped the gun a little bit and my content really wasn’t as good as this so I have high hopes for it. I mean fuck me it’s better than twilight.

Anyway gotta do something actually productive today, I’m back on facebook so I’m gonna do some spamming with this lovely little chapter people can’t complain about being unedited. Despite the fact people will just to be dicks haha.

Yeah so here’s that, now I have to get to proofreading and spamming and all that good stuff.

See you…

 

–

Paul drove his dad’s car when he was out in some Middle-Eastern hell hole doing what I could only dream about, literally. But in an altogether less neat and ritualistic way at the behest of his Uncle Sam.

That’s a level of trust you can’t kill for. His dad was obviously very confident in the offspring he’d carefully chiseled out of clay. That, or he was indelibly dim-witted, allowing his only child to drive around in his top-of-the-line vehicle. Having only met him a handful of times, I couldn’t say which was the case.

It was an older model olive drab Hummer, with leather interiors that smelled like discipline and spearmint gum. The thing ran like it was brand new, the old man kept it in peak condition, and his son took it just as seriously.

I opened a bag of chips in her once on the way to an Ariana Grande concert and he made me get out and finish them on the side of the freeway. That was fun.

Another thing I loved about Paul Alan Junior was, he rarely talked. There’s the strong silent types. Then there’s this type, the type that’s conditioned to ‘being seen and not heard,’ on levels that teeter on ‘culty’, if that’s a word. His father taught him well; sometimes I wondered if he wasn’t as damaged as I was. Instead of breaking the mold, he’d been hammered perfectly into it. A living Ken doll with no visible cracks or creases.

Thankfully, unlike a Ken Doll, they’d seen fit to leave the important places ‘unsmoothed,’—not that that really mattered to me.

Unlike most people, I’m a big fan of comfortable silence; sadly in Orange County, near the coast, it’s in short supply. Inside the sealed air conditioned mobile command center that was Paul’s dad’s car, it was preserved. Like some kind of orchid, hermetically sealed for freshness. I could almost taste it as I watched the anemic palm trees and midafternoon roller-skaters go by. Baking and cracking in the sun while I felt like a lizard on a cool dry rock; bliss.

With a full stomach, it was even better. He took me to this little taco place we like near the beach because it’s quiet and he knows that’s why I like it.

I had the vegan taco; not vegan but I like their food and for some strange reason I like animals. Not really people or kids. Of course, people are kids but there needed to be a distinction. Although, I don’t hate them.

I just have a callous indifference for everything that doesn’t walk on four legs. There’s something about them I like, their raw natures, their lack of pretense, lack of a filter. Their natural instincts just accepted, not sanded away by school or television.

Sadly, the feeling is not mutual. Every cat or dog my aunt ever brought back would rather jump under a semi than let me pet them. I won a gold fish at a fair once, got it a bowl and a little castle, the whole bit. As soon as we put it in the bowl, it climbed those castle steps and was never seen again. It chose a life of solitude like some hunchback. It starved to death rather than see me for all of the five seconds it took for me to sprinkle food on the surface of the water.

Paul paid for the tacos, of course, perfect gentleman.

Feminism, what’s that?

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, as he kept his eyes straight, hands at ten and two.

I looked at him and sighed, and smiled with the corners of my mouth like a snake. “No.” suggesting it could’ve gone either way.

He looked good in profile, a strong chin, long straight nose, light dusting of designer stubble. The aviator sunglasses were probably also his dad’s. His hair was tight at the sides with a bit of gel assisted lift at the front.

“Is that a real ‘no’ or a woman’s ‘no’?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the road, just smiled out at nothing.

“No as in no.” I just couldn’t get those dreams out of my head. Picturing the city under the blanket of night and me stalking its street like some carrion bird picking off the weak and strong alike. It was a mix of horror and sheer splendor mixing in my chest. A feeling so unexplainable, to try seemed like blasphemy.

“You just seem—” The leather squeaked under him; his eyes remained forward, he poked his tongue into his cheek, as if looking for the right word. “Different”.

Should I tell him about my dream, maybe just to shut him up? I don’t have to tell him about the good bits, I can keep those to myself, locked away in Dear Diana’s vault of diabolical deeds.

I make a bit of a show of it, lick my lips so he can hear, maybe not over the air-conditioning. “I had this weird dream.” I shrugged and smiled again.

Paul readjusted the rearview mirror, still he wore that dumb smile. “What kind of dream?”

Two questions in one day. Aren’t we the inquisitive type today?

“I was walking…walking, at night.” I tapped my front teeth together anxiously. A creeping odd feeling of cold hit me and I rubbed my bare pale arms to warm them but my hands were just as cold.

“Like a vampire?”

I scoffed.

“You really shouldn’t be walking alone at night Di—even in your dreams.” He made a hawing laugh sound in his throat, and turned that smile directly on me.

“Cute.”

Paul unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth, somehow without taking his hands off the wheel. “You haven’t heard?” He poked the gum packet in my general direction.

“Apparently not,” I said, losing a sliver of patience, as I politely batted away the offer of gum.

He lifted his aviators and looked into the rearview mirror, as he chewed loudly. “You haven’t been watching the news?”

“Not if I don’t have to, boring show.” There goes another one.

Paul took in a deep breath and continued to chew. “They found a couple’ a bodies washed up on Huntington Beach.” He said.

“Bodies?” Happens every other day here. Some fat tourist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania goes belly up in a rubber dingy and we have to pretend to care.

“Headless bodies.” He made a chopping motion at his neck, like I didn’t know what headless meant. “They think it’s a serial killer or something.”

Or something, something like a chip of ice broken off, a cold laughter in the dark, a tinny voice spoke a language only I could understand. Those words set my teeth on edge, my skin to a cool burn.

“Really?” I tried to sound like I wasn’t chomping at the bit to Google this on my phone right in front of him. I swallowed, trying to pretend it didn’t faze me at all; like it wasn’t the most rapturous news I’d heard in my life.

Like there weren’t alarm bells ringing all through Diana’s dark deep depths. Like a light didn’t go off in my head, telling me somewhere, somehow, this is what I’d been waiting for.

But what else? Of course I need to feign some sort of fear, some kind of concern, for the victims for their family’s maybe.

I realized suddenly, a whole minute had passed since I last spoke. I just threw out a stock, “That’s horrible, those poor people.” For effect. No tears, no screams? Too much.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” Paul smiled.

“Did they find them?”

“Did they find what?” he asked, tipping his sunglasses down.

“The heads.” I asked quietly, as I tried to restrain myself from biting my lip.

He started chewing out of the other side of his mouth. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think they said.”

“Oh, terrible, I’m so scared!” I muttered almost shaking with excitement. What could it mean, why take the heads? Was it just a gang thing? Maybe the cartel. They love murdering random people and scattering them all over the place. Maybe some kind of Santeria voodoo hoodoo thing. But what happened to the heads?

Maybe they washed away and became a house for a family of California Dungeness crabs.

But not to find one, that stood out to me. It could’ve just been Paul forgot, but it seemed to strike a chord with Diana’s Dark Double. A shrill laughter, a tingle, a shiver up my spine, electricity on my fingertips. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up to salute the day, I had to check my lip to make sure I wasn’t drooling. Something seemed so right about it, something I had no idea I was waiting for.

I had to find out.

The moment he stopped the car, I bound out of the door like a dog seeing another passing car full of burning cats. I tossed back a feeble kissing noise and something like “Bye, babe, see you tomorrow!”

He said something equally as vapid back and swung a wide U-turn around the tiny roundabout at the end of the cul-de-sac I lived in, and drove off in a cloud of diesel smoke. The maneuver was something akin to the Titanic trying to do a Mexican Hat Dance around the iceberg.

Paul almost always just drove over it, leaving muddy tire tracks and crushed flowers in his wake, which seemed to really piss off my neighbors for some reason.

Oh well.

I quickstepped to the door of our ‘reasonably’ priced Orange County bungalow that looked like a little beach hut. Complete with beach towels drying on a spinner in the tiny front yard.

I was trying not to break into a full-scale sprint. I managed to keep my hand loose enough so I didn’t break the key off in the lock. Just to avoid any unnecessary time wasting conversations with my aunt. I wanted to be free to sit down at my computer as quick as humanly possible.

The keys on my chain rattled and it took me too long to find the right one and keep it still long enough to get it to go in the lock.

I turned the key, flinging the door open, closed it behind me and strode through the hall. I passed the living room, which I followed with my eyes.

The TV was on, the news, something about the killings. What a coincidence, but something in me told me this had to be a private moment, shared with no one.

Not even my own flesh and blood, and I also didn’t want any spoilers, no fluff, or padding. Just raw stark reality, no artist’s impression for Diana of the Dark.

I hurried past, slurring my words. “Hey, I’m home, had a great day, not hungry, kinda tired, going to my room, kthanksbye!”

Bustled past what felt like a crowd in a train station, but was just a bunch of squash equipment occupying the hall for some reason. I got in my room, pulled the door shut and had a fight with a wooden hat rack I’d thought was cute on Amazon, but had yet to buy a hat for.

My room was a hovel. Clothes, clean and dirty in piles throughout the room and on my bed. Posters of bands I didn’t listen to anymore, if I ever did in the first place, peeled off the walls and ceiling. Containers of soft drinks and burgers—I’m not a vegetarian. I like animals, big difference. They could have been vegie burgers, I don’t remember.

The curtains were drawn and the room was dark and humid. I put on the fan, and it started to cough and move warm air around my small room.

My laptop sat atop a throne of dirty clothes on my bed, half open like a clamshell.

I snatched it up and almost tossed it onto my dresser/desk/landfill. I turned it on and found a swivel chair with a sock wrapped tightly around one of the wheels. Its swiveling days were over, as the sock had lodged itself deep in one of the wheels. I parked my butt down and waited for my laptop to boot up, which seemed to be taking much longer than usual.

Punching it wouldn’t make it go any faster. So I didn’t do that.

Patience Diana.

It finally booted up, and I quickly logged in. My fingers almost tripped over themselves to type in my password, Dahmer7.

I opened a browser and typed, “Headless bodies, Huntington beach.”

There were a lot of results, but the top results seemed to be the most recent.

The Beachcomber had the juiciest title. The bodies had been found on the beach after all. So it seemed fitting.

 ‘Is there a head-hunter in Orange County?’ Jess Wode of The Beachcomber asked

I hope so Jess, I do hope so.

 It was apparent from the outset, this person had no idea what was actually going on. They were reading a police report, and adding their own ‘unique spin’. Or more likely, recycling a headline from another newspaper that also knew nothing.

Nothing more than headless bodies were found on the beach. That sells newspapers.

I was grinding my teeth, considering the prospects of a journalism degree. How much easier it would be to get access to all the morbid tripe I could get my hands on, if only I were a cop or a forensic tech or something.

The article was trite speculation and useless filler and what’s more, no pictures. What a waste of time.

I went through a few more sites. before I realized the police must be keeping a really tight lid on this one. No leaks, no cracks, no crevices, not even a video on someone’s phone, a selfie of a morbid dog walker, nothing.

Well that was disappointing. Even more so realizing that I would have to do the exact same thing as in my blog.

I opened another window and clicked on the bookmark tab for my blog. It wasn’t very fancy, I’m okay with computers, what kid born post y2k isn’t?

A super script kiddy hacker, I am not, but I’m getting there. The blog was just a standard WordPress blog dolled up with emo fonts and cheesy blood spatter effects as a background.

Mostly a serial killer fansite, where I documented murders and weird goings-on in the world at large. I ran it anonymously, obviously for the same reason I didn’t collect knives or listen to death metal.

Not that there’s anything right with that, but the connotations are the problem. People’s impressions really are everything.

If I do go on a killing spree out of the blue, I’d make it way too easy on them. They could blame reality TV, or Marilyn Manson or videogames instead of the harsh reality they’re hiding from.

Which is, Diana of the Dark Descent?

A shiver up my spine and that mocking chortle; the word I’m looking for is banal at best. ‘Evil’ doesn’t really cover it.

When I think evil, it’s more twirling moustaches and girls tied to train tracks. Some brawny hero coming to the rescue. This wasn’t so simple, it was never truly that simple.

Besides, how selfish would I have to be to let my ‘appetites’ harm the good name of videogames and death metal?

I logged in and tried to compose something, anything.

No pictures, maybe I should’ve just Googled ‘headless bodies’ in images. What kind of ‘leet’ hacker would I be if I didn’t figure out how to turn off my aunt’s safe search—in the fourth grade no less?

I felt dumb and dithering, as I looked at that blank text box I was about to fill with smoke, definitively from my ass. This must be what it feels like to be a real journalist.

My eyes wandered from the blank text box to my notifications. There was one. I clicked it, pretending I wasn’t mildly excited. Almost an addiction, checking notifications, expecting some great revelation. Some invisible backslap from a stranger or shit slung from some obtuse basement dweller, or maybe even a picture of a dick.

Other women complain about this constantly, I don’t get the fuss. It’s just a dick. I get the distinct feeling they’d be more miserable if the conveyer belt of phallic imagery would ebb. Maybe around their mid to late thirties.

It was a comment from one of the handfuls of subs to this small corner of the internet I call my own.

Spoopyshadowguy666 writes, ‘Check your inbox’.

This guy again, he subbed to me maybe a month or two ago, and he’s always sending me these weird cryptic emails. Like puzzles or riddles, games, and no pictures of his penis, woe is me.

Okay, I’ll bite.

I opened my inbox and it was empty, funny, my room looked like a homeless shelter, but I like to keep a tidy inbox.

I check the spam folder and waded through all the phishing emails and things trying to sell me Viagra and dildos and wart remover. A combination I can’t recommend.

His emails in the past didn’t really seem all that interesting. Mostly pictures of people, their names and addresses. Odd things, like their habits and work schedules, where they like to hang out.

It was weird but it didn’t cross the boundaries of being really strange. Seemed like the random fixations of a professional stalker. The standard fare for any fan of a serial killer page.

None of the people in the pictures seemed to be connected in anyway, different races, ages, jobs, sexes. If there was a pattern I didn’t pick it up, so into the spam folder it went. 

Today I was feeling ready for a distraction. Anything that would save me from the blank text box, and raking the bottom of my own skull for inane bullshit.

There it was, the subject of the email read ‘Do you see what I see?’ There were some attachments.

Here we go, finally the validation of seeing a nice hard cock of a stranger, can’t wait.

Clicking on the email revealed that it was pretty much the same as before. Pictures of seemingly random people, with little to no correlation in the way they looked.

I scrolled through them aimlessly, feeling silly for wasting my time. Then I saw a face that sent a little sliver of ice into the dark well.  I felt it stir.

A small flap of leathery wings, a tail uncoiling.

The face seemed oddly familiar. It was a Hispanic guy, maybe in his late twenties-early thirties, curly brown hair, small almond eyes, a flat nose and wide lips. The name on the image was Antoine Ruiz.

Ruiz, that name also seems familiar but it’s a Hispanic name and I go to a school that has a sizeable population. I think I sat behind a Ruiz in calculus.

I decided I was being silly, it was meaningless. I was making a big deal over nothing. I could have seen this guy while I was eating tacos an hour ago. He could have been staring right at me while he was grating vegan cheese and I wouldn’t have noticed.

There was something odd about these photos, though. They seemed different. The ones before were almost stock images pulled straight from Facebook or Twitter. Selfies, pictures taken by friends of them standing with surf board or in front of lobster dinners or on vacation.

These pictures seemed more intrusive, and increasingly so, as I cycled through them. Pictures from a distance, with their faces turned away from the camera, as if they had no idea they were being taken.

There were no smirks of the impending picture taking, no glib grins of people trying to show themselves at their bests. Instead it was the harsh glare of the camera’s eye revealing them in their natural state, completely unaware.

The first pictures of this Ruiz character made it obvious he was some kind of small time drug pusher or pimp. At night, with girls. Clandestine exchanges with people in cars with tinted windows. Moving his gun around the waistband of his Jordans.

Quite a character. Another small tingle was conjured as the next image was that of a small single story house, not mine. That would have been really ‘spoopy’.

No, it was a lot more ‘low-key’. Wider but with an unkempt, dried out lawn, and some desert plants in front. He’s really going to be hearing from the homeowners’ society.

The pictures got closer, looking through the windows at Ruiz. There was some kind of party going on, armed bouncers at the doors, people going in and out at all hours. The time stamps said as much.

Girls of the paid variety hanging around.

Quite the operation he has going on there.

Then more, after the party was over and people were leaving. It could have been just my imagination, but on a headcount it seemed like they were one girl short.

Then the next morning. Ruiz appeared, pulling heavy duty black trash bags to the boot of his car.

I clicked back and forth through the pictures like I was watching a video. Trying to separate reality from some daytime TV show with a cheesy title. ‘Appointment for murder’. Waiting for the other shoe to truly drop.

Was this a joke? A prank? Was someone playing a trick on poor delusional Diana? A trap? It didn’t seem to want to go in my brain, make the jump from pictures on a screen to actual things happening in real living color.

Something inside told me it was very real, hyper real, and right in front of my eyes. My teeth clenched, wishing there were some pictures inside the trash bags but that’s where the pictures ended.

What a tease.

I didn’t get it, who was this guy? A cop? Was it some kind of message? A warning? Was I being investigated? It looked like surveillance footage, and it looked like Antoine Ruiz was the type that needed to be ‘surveilled’.

Why send these pictures to Dainty Diana? Was it a mistake? It made no sense, and the more sense I tried to make out of it, I realized there was no sense to be made.

There was a puzzle piece missing, deliberately so and there was no way I was going to find it here.

The email itself was blank, but I scrolled down to the bottom.

If I sent a response, what do I say?

‘Do you see what I see?’ I see it, I think I do.

If ‘it’ was what I thought it was. I see it like no one else can see it.

There was something more than that, something deeper. Something that spoke directly to that part no one else should know about. What was it saying?

What would I want to say? What would I want?

To feel in control, to feel a step ahead of the person getting the email. To let them know I know them and they know nothing about me and I’m watching and waiting for what, for me?

To do what? Who am I? I’m no one, less than no one.

A high school senior with a tiny blog and a love for comfortable silences and Mexican food and occasionally living vicariously through famous serial killers.

Now I’m rolling my eyes back in my skull, looking into that pure clear darkness. The blackboard where truth is written by my dark professor.

It laughed, a cold mirthless laughter that shakes flecks of cool sea water off its irreverent scales.

What was it teaching me? What does he want from me? What does he want me to do with Antoine Ruiz?

What would I want it to say, not just, ‘Do you see what I see?’ But; ‘I see you.’

He sees me.

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GS2 Chaper 21 ‘Some girls are bigger than others’

Hey there,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So we’ll see how that goes.

See you… 

–

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

Some girls are bigger than others

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Gage chapter 11 ‘Heel on the shovel

Good morrow fine folks,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you…

–

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

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

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

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

“Hello, is anyone there?”

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

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

“HHh-hello? Who’s there?”

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

There was another deathly silence where nothing moved.

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

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

“Ww-we? There’s more of you?”

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

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

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

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

A few grunts were sent back in answer.

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

“Questions?”

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

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

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

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

“You said something about a bank?

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

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

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

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

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

“The end?”

–

Read the rest of the chapter here.

Heel on the shovel

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