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Dexter Morgan

Diana in the dark epilogue ‘Waltz me to the grave’ (remurdered)

Henlo there,

Gonna be really light on content this week, not that my imaginary is that bothered but they’re simply a stand in for myself and I am disappoint haha. Just been too busy to get any writing done, still hoping against hope that I’ll get this new job, I think I might be a good for it. The other job I applied for to the same place already came back as a no and they’re both closed but I didn’t get a rejection for the one I actually wanted so I’m definitely being considered for it which feels great.

But even if I don’t get it, it changes nothing, my goal is to get to her and I god willing I’ll get a job there and be able to be there for her in some way shape or form. That’s all that matters. I just wish I’d realised sooner, it might be too late now. I dunno, I can’t think like that.
Might do a poem tomorrow since I have nothing else. I did watch that new Jordan Peele movie US and I thought it was kinda shitty. Like a cool idea that was just fumbled, I think it could have made a better tv show. I know he’s doing a twilight zone tv show remake and it might have been a better fit. Because the movie both feels kind of compressed and also really lacking in the necessary lore.
It just made no sense and was kind of silly, like the tone wasn’t right and none of the main cast die so there’s no real tension or drama. It could’ve been a 12a really. There just wasn’t a lot of depth to it, there wasn’t a lot going on. Kinda got Strangers vibes and a few other movies but it just didn’t really do anything very interesting. It was like a cargo cult movie. It looked and felt like a slasher style movie maybe aping the ones from the eighties and nineties but it didn’t have any of the personality or soul of those movies. There wasn’t enough character development or subplot or moral lessons in it to really feel like there was a conclusion. 

The main character didn’t go on a journey, they were just reacting to what was happening to them. There were elements hinting on emotional/personal struggles that could’ve been core to the movies themes but they were never really developed. The movie is long but it feels short because of the lack of real content.

Not to say I didn’t enjoy it, it was a pretty fun romp. But it was ultimately substance-less. Although I’m sure some people can pick out deep social themes it at least wasn’t as preachy and heavy handed as Get out. Still I enjoyed it more than the pet cemetery remake.

Anyway, supposed to be looking for more jobs, mainly because waiting to here back about the one I really want is driving me nuts.

See you…

–

“Oh, Paul, oh, Paul!” I pretended to weep as they lowered the coffin into the ground.

As fate would have it, this was the first funeral I’d ever been to. I sincerely doubted it would be my last.

I actually kind of liked it, there was a comfort in the routine of it, the ceremony was soothing. Everyone gathered together to think the nicest possible thoughts of the dearly departed, wearing their nicest clothes. There was solemn dignity, and lots of tears—real or otherwise.

It was a lovely service, flowers, tearful speeches from people I barely knew and the promise of cake in the near future.

“Oh, Paul,” I wept again into a balsam tissue.

“Shhh.” He patted my head, as I rested it on his shoulder.

Thankfully, he remembered very little of our little midnight drive into the middle of nowhere. A combination of all the blows to the head, and a cocktail of drugs concocted by my dear brother.

My dear brother—who was not yet dearly-departed, but still on the run. From what, I couldn’t be sure, because as far as the Orange County authorities were concerned, Antoine Ruiz was, and forever would be, the Huntington Beach Headsman. A title far above his station.

As far my brother had any say in it, Ruiz would never be found, and the myth, the meme, could live on forever. The evil slasher come to life to terrorize a group of innocent teens on prom night. Leaving one not so virginal survivor and her stalwart and tight lipped boyfriend.

There was something about that the normies liked, a divine ritual fulfilled. Like Hollywood had been setting them up for the very occurrence, and been vindicated in the best possible way. Slipped right in place into their cultural consciousness like it was another Friday night.

With that and a little help from our man in the high castle with a claw for a hand it all seemed to wrap up nicely, a neat little bow of red tape, signed sealed and delivered by uncle Sam himself.

I continued to pretend to cry, just making the noise of crying and covering my face, constantly batting away fake tears, no one was watching.

“You need another tissue?” My au-sister Mary Anne asked, pulling a fresh pack out of her purse and giving me a tight restrained smile.

We’d settled on my just calling her my aunt; aunt-sister was a bit of a mouthful, and calling her by her name just felt weird. Plus, I really didn’t want to get bogged down in explaining to people that she wasn’t actually my aunt, but in fact my estranged half-sister, pretending to be my aunt, because we’d watched our real aunt butchered before our eyes, then be put on display like a hunting trophy by our brother, my half-brother. That all seemed best tucked away for a rainy day.

“Thanks,” I took the tissues, smiling a nice fake smile, far better than my brother’s. My estimation of how deep the knife had penetrated Dharma’s side was off by a wide margin.

I would’ve assumed he didn’t want to kill her but necessity for his own life had forced him to act. Similarly, the shot being off-center, it would’ve been nice to think she’d extended him the same courtesy but that might’ve been a stretch, since she mostly carried really strong pepper spray, giving out tickets in cycle shorts. Never the less, her arm was in a fashionable sling for some reason. I never understood why they did that in movies; he hadn’t stabbed her in the arm.

A sudden prodding feeling roused me from my daydream, and I looked over at the grave and the nice picture they had over it. It was the one of the several taken at her sweet sixteen. Wendy did look nice in that one, so full of life. Who would’ve suspected her of anything worse than forgetting to floss?

That feeling again, like someone walking over my grave, someone drilling little hot holes in the back of my head.

I scanned the crowd of her fake friends, the rest of the cheerleading squad, her many exes—the last notwithstanding—and me, her best friend.

Then I saw her.

She was hard to miss, now that I’d noticed her. Dressed as she was, in correctional-facility orange, and chained to two cops. Her dark deep set eyes sent me icy daggers on angel wings. Her hair was long and greasy looking and made curtains of a plain white flat unmade face. Prison make-unders were a real thing.

What did they have against makeup in prison? It wasn’t like eyeliner was against the law. Conditioner even.

Wendy’s mother, the one currently on trial for the murder of her husband. Looking right at me. Not around, not past, but through me.

She knew.

I could see it in her face.

I didn’t know how she knew, but I’d find out given half a chance, when that happy vicious moon was smiling high in the sky again.

D and I would ask nicely.

0

Diana in the dark chapter 15 ‘The build up’ (remurdered)

Hey there,

So I got fuck all done this week, call it ‘writers block’ if you want but I don’t really get that I just need to think about a scene in the shower and it usually unravels, don’t ask me how that works. But it leads to like hour long showers and stupidly high water bills to create well structured scenes no one reads haha.

But this week I was busy with work and other things and I just couldn’t focus so I ended up writing about a line or two max. Don’t fret imaginary people I still have content for thursday.

I worry less about keeping to schedule than I do churning out garbage and half of me is thinking I shouldn’t have started this book in my current state because I’m ruining it and there’s really no going back. But I mean fuck what am I ruining? No one cares, why should I? I’m gonna keep on keeping on basically.

Weird enough though I was thinking I should’ve done Diana 2 instead of embarking on fantasy epic trilogy. I dunno why, I was just thinking about how I felt when I wrote that and the music I was listening. A lot of my feelings are tied up in that idea. Because when I was reading the books that inspired it I was deeply in love with the woman I thought would be the love of my life, safe to say that’s not the case now.

But at the time, it’s like that music and that subject matter conjures up those feelings for me. Which is pretty fucked up since those books are like the least romantic books ever and mine are exactly the same haha. I guess there must be something romantic about serial killers or people wouldn’t love them so much. Regardless, this book was crafted with that love and part of me recently has been longing for that. 

Maybe absence is making the heart grow fonder or I’m just forgetting all the stuff that made me mad.

Funny I watched that new Ted Bundy movie, the one with Zach Efron and it was a pretty shitty movie honestly. Because it couldn’t decide who the main character was and the editing made it feel more like a music video than a movie. It was just badly directed and written and paced, Zach Efron was incredible in it though and it did a good job making me doubt he actually did it. Because I mean if you look at all the evidence against him it really is just a pile of circumstantial stuff. There’s no hard evidence and we see all the time that the police fake this stuff when they like someone for a crime and need to close it. DNA apparently is about as reliable as a chocolate condom but we’re made to believe it’s the nail in the coffin. Also fibre evidence was debunked as basically a hoax not too long ago. The fbi was exposed as completely fabricating it. It was just something they could use to seal a case they didn’t have a lock on.

We see this kind of dishonest tactics used by the police constantly because the focus isn’t on finding the truth it’s just on closing cases to appease the public and the media. They don’t care about finding the right guy, they just care about finding someone that fits. And the person that fits is the one who can’t prove they didn’t do it.

Like you always hear people say “He was the nicest guy” when they talk about friends of serial killers but what if they were just really nice guys and they were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and they’re using this to try and skew our perspective and make us believe something that goes against our own initial sense of a person.

I mean you can never really know and people ‘well he confessed’ yeah but for years he protested his innocence despite facing the death penalty and he said he confessed just to buy more time. When you put people against the wall they’ll confess to nearly anything. It amazes me how little actual evidence there is in cases like this. I always thought the murders that happened after he escaped jail were the nail in the coffin, but there actually isn’t a lot of evidence he did those and they didn’t even fit the MO of the original murders and it makes a lot more sense that they just had these murders with no suspects but since he was on the run it made sense to just pin them on him. It’s a pretty easy sell to the media.

Also in the movie, I’m not sure this happened in real life, but a cop totally lies in a deposition. You’d have to be a moron to believe his testimony, it’s so blatant. He says Bundy confessed off the record but it’s legal to bug interviews in that but somehow mysteriously the bug wasn’t working and just when he made this huge confession that he was a vampire. I laughed my ass, it was so silly, how did he think that would sound in court? It’s just nonsense.
It reminds me of this documentary I watched where this guy joked that he must have done the murders while he was sleeping but the cops took it literally and he spent the next 20 years in prison until he was released. They took an obvious joke as a confession and nailed him. It’s ridiculous, it makes ‘innocent until proven guilty’ look like a joke.

The legal system is totally broken.

But I suppose the movie was interesting just for that but I guess this is the biggest reason I’m against the death penalty. Because Bundy is dead, we’ll never know the truth, ever. He could’ve been working in prison to prove his innocence or writing books about the crimes proving his guilt once and for all. But that’ll never happen now because he’s dead.

Just not knowing and knowing I’ll never know makes me mad haha.

Anyway bit of digression, I guess. I’m just thinking things over and I even though I said I didn’t think it would work out with her and I believed that I always wanted it to. I always thought or I hoped that we would eventually end up together. Part of me still believes that and I know she believed that too considering how crazy she went over me dating someone else. 

I kinda thought if I dated someone else it would break that spell but it really didn’t, it might have made it even worse. I’ve probably fucked it up for good now, but I suppose it’s better to think that than to dream that someday we’ll make things worse. Not just because it’s sad but also because I don’t want to become complacent and imagine it’ll fall in my lap and then it just never does. If it’s real then I want to go out and get it myself.

Obviously it’s not my only motivation for wanting to move but it’s up there.

Anyway I’ve rambled enough, I think I might be a sad manbaby neat and do a review about Mary Poppins haha. Or look for more work, actually plan a future that isn’t a fucking smokescreen.

See you…

 

–

The outside air was hot, a tropical wind like a hair dryer blowing in my face. My caked make up courtesy of Wendy melted like a wax mask off my face.

Sirens in the distance crept over the shoreline, a sudden feeling of impending brain fart looming.

What could I do, except throw myself on the mercy of a barrage of police questions with only my cute-girl routine to fall back on. “It wasn’t me, Mr. Scary Policeman, it was the one armed man.”

It was a toss up to what disgusted me more; the thought I’d actually have to resort to that, or that it might actually work. Good looks didn’t last forever.

My number one priority was finding Paul, and getting as far the hell away from there as possible. With Wendy more or less dealt with, that only left her little commandment breaking brother, Denny.  Although, I struggled to think which if not all the commandments he’d broken, surely he didn’t honor his father or his mother. Incest and drug-taking were apparently just a given.

My plan was pretty slick; escaping out the rear fire door, since doubling back through the main hall might put me back on Wendy’s warpath. Considering she wasn’t buried under a ton of chipboard, which seemed a likely resting place for the wicked witch of the West Coast. Or even worse; an awkward conversation with Dharma over a dead cop. Also, I couldn’t pretend to hope Denny hadn’t heard the shots. Or for that matter had missed the waves of startled human cattle stampeding into the parking lot and disappearing into the night.

It was a good bet he thought he was well on his way to enacting some kind of bloody revenge on my hapless ‘aunt’ who wasn’t home. For—of course—ruining what could’ve been a lovely evening for his demented sister/possible lover. Or, option two—he was waiting with his hand on a large knife or gun for either me or his sister to come out. So they could then ship off to Aspen in the middle of the night and blow Orange County a kiss from the slopes with new names and probably new noses.

I opened the fire exit with a mechanical clunking noise followed by lots of banging and scraping and a distinct smell of week-old garbage. The back of the laser arcade was a tight and cluttered alley opening onto a strip mall behind the arcade.

The sirens were getting louder, so if Denny was still there he’d have to be getting more nervous and trigger-happy by the second.

I looked down at myself, at the silly pink prom dress. What was it I was planning to do exactly? Teen movie him to death?

A grave scraping, like death’s scythe in the shadows around my feet sent icy shivers up my bare ankle. It was followed by a bitter mocking chuckle from the dark back seat. I breathed out, and reached down to pick up whatever the hell I’d almost tripped over.

The moonlight lifted its lidded eyes a slant to shine down on this unholy implement. It was just a pipe, some kind of gas pipe maybe; no clue, really—I wasn’t a plumber. It was heavy on one end with a gnarly looking gauge or something sticking out.

Clue it is.

Who did that make me? Miss Scarlett or Madame Peacock? Was there a pink Clue character?

‘This will do nicely,’ the thing inside said; but not in so many words. Its teeth bared behind its leathery wings, sending a rush of blood through the tips of my fingers. It made me feel magnetized, electric, like I was sticking to the walls. Like I was Spiderman, crawling unseen above everyone’s heads, as I traced through the dark in my ridiculous pink dress—ruffles and all. Quietly, I worked my way along the side of the laser arcade, back around to the front.

The alley leading onto the strip mall was cramped, and smelled like old hamburger meat. No doubt it  was filthy. But the darkness was kind to it and me, as I peeked around the side of the pastel-colored building at the now more-or-less vacant parking lot.

Except for one stretch Hummer.

The parking lot was pretty well-lit but the moon had given me a few dark pools in which to wallow. There was a large billboard on wheels facing the road, and a few trucks dotted about. They probably belonged to the furniture store on the other side of the arcade.

With the pipe in hand, I hiked up my skirt like Lady Chatterley about to descend her carriage or walk over a pothole, skittering along the ground as low as possible. I came up behind the billboard and peeked out for a closer look.

There was no movement. Although, the tinted glass and the inherent clash of the shadows against the bright parking lot lights made it impossible to see inside. I smelled axel grease and looked down at my hands and dress. I was covered in it. The pipe was the obvious culprit. I made a silent yuck face and slipped back into the dark mask.

My body felt loosely coiled, the sensation of letting go mashed against the rising tide of ultimate control. Black powerful waves tossed tiny boats aside like they were in the bath tub of Cthulhu’s baby brother.

Slinking low, I made it around the back of a white truck, edging nearer to the limo, The sound of the sirens were getting closer, but not close enough. I wagered I had time, but for what?

Was I going to play with him right there and now before the cops could come and whisk me away to the local funny farm?

A quick bludgeoning, I had probably about two minutes max to deal with him, but no time to escape. Escape? Why would I do that? I was a hero, wasn’t I?

I’d dropped the castle on the Wicked Witch, and I was about to get the butler with the lead pipe in the parking lot. It would wrap up nicely, a neat little bow; not exactly how I expected it to go, but it was definitely a memorable evening.

I was actually surprised the cops weren’t here already. Cantwell really must have been going solo up until now, and I assumed hadn’t told anyone where he was on his unwarranted and illegal stake out of yours truly. The siren might have been for someone else, sirens are not an uncommon thing to hear in California. But surely one of the fleeing masses must have taken the time to dial 911. It was possible that a frantic crowd might just assume that everyone else was dialing 911 and they didn’t have to. Nevertheless staying around waiting for them wasn’t my best option for tonight’s entertainment.

I slipped around the truck, trying to keep the rustling noises of my dress to a minimum. As I got closer to the limo, I could hear music and now I could see around the other side.  The driver’s side door was open and the music was coming from inside. Some obnoxious dub step, blaring from the front seat but there was no movement. Maybe Denny was taking a nap, or had stepped out to take a leak. Was it even remotely possible he hadn’t noticed the stampede of teens in the parking lot?

Maybe heroin makes you deaf.

He could’ve just been dead on the front seat with a needle in his arm; that would’ve been neat albeit anti-climactic. I edged along the driver’s side of the limo. I was low, but kept my eyes on the wing mirrors to see inside. It was too dark to make out anything interesting, or hear anything above the annoying music and my heartbeat.

The heat of the tropical night gave way to a cold shiver from the pit of my stomach. A loose tittering of pronged chicken feet pricked my skin, as the dark one wrestled into the front seat and pulled me closer to the door. I was scared but it pulled me closer, and I couldn’t hope to resist, I was on rails, a twisted passenger on a ride in Dahmerland.

All the hairs on my neck raised and licked the air, feeling the vibrations. The night, pricks of light dancing on the head of a pin, so clear and sleek not black but a luminous detailed gray.

Through the mirror, I could see him. Denny was just sitting there bolt upright; not moving. Creeping closer, the wings at my back, a righteous wind made my foot fleet, and I closed the gap quickly and quietly, keeping flat against the limo.

Peering in at a low angle I could see one of his sneakers under the uniform, a splotch of what looked like cranberry juice on it.

–

 

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Diana in the dark Chapter 13 ‘Daddy’s little darlings’ (Remurdered)

Ok, well I started it I guess.

Yeah started Cur 2 and it went about as well as it can be expected barely at half my usual output but it’s there. I can’t say it’s as good as Cur 1 for an opening by that I mean it’s boring-er and by that I mean Cur isn’t hacking people to pieces within the first few paragraphs. 

I wanted to go for a more slow build, actually I have no idea why I’m talking about this now I should wait until I finish proofreading it, gonna shelve this now and talk about something else, save that for another blog.

So I saw that new M. Night Shamalamadingdong movie glass and it fucking sucked. Why is anyone surprised by this?

Actually nevermind, I’ll save that for a review. Translation; I started talking about it not wanting to do a full review – which then turned into a full review I cut out for another blog haha.

So other than writing Cur which I can’t talk about and watching Glass which I also can’t talk about I’ve been playing Vampyr by dontnod, prolific developer of the award winning millennial walking simulator Life is strange. And honestly I… actually never mind, I’ll save that for it’s own blog haha.

Yeah so.. bye! X’D

–

When the darkness faded, I opened my eyes. He was there.

“Come on, I wanna show you something.” A little boy with a bowl cut hairstyle was leading me down a tight white hallway.

There was a door; he wanted me to go through.

What was on the other side?

The door was huge; I could barely reach the handle. It was turning red, the door, it was melting.

What’s in there?

“A surprise. I did it for you.”

Shapes appeared in the red goo the door was turning into. A face was pushing through the malleable material.

It’s my face, it’s a mirror.

A sudden jolt and my face hit something hard and flat. I was thrust back into the land of the living rather unceremoniously.

My head hurt, I was still seeing spots, but that was all. There was something over my eyes. I could almost feel the veins in my neck; my brain hurt like someone had slam dunked it through a stained glass window.

There was something wet and warm on my face, getting colder. Shit, blood, it had to be blood. “I’m bleeding” I cried out to the dark, to no one in particular.

“Relax,” a woman’s voice said. “It’s just drool—you can wipe it off when we get there.”

“Get where?” I asked.

“Prom, of course,” Wendy said.

I tried to move but my hands were strapped to something at my side. But I could feel the car plaining over wet roads, felt it turning, stopping. We were moving.

“Don’t move, don’t be dumb.” Her voice was tight, stern with a bitter frosty bite. “Don’t bother screaming, we’ll just crank the radio up, the windows are tinted no one can see us in here.” There was a cool commanding calm in her voice.

“Wendy, what’s going on?”

She laughed. “What’s going on? We’re going to prom, didn’t I just say that?”

The car slowly ground to a halt and I heard the driver get out.

“Just gotta make a little stop along the way,” She added.

“Wendy I—”

“I should’ve known it was you. My mom warned me about you; you’ve always been jealous of me. How did you know?” The jewelry on her arm jangled as she talked, no doubt gesturing to someone blindfolded. “I bet you felt really fucking clever, sending me those little notes… How clever do you feel now, huh?”

The passenger side door to my left opened and something big and heavy was slung at my side.

“Don’t make a fucking noise, puto, don’t make me shoot you!” a man’s voice said.

The door shut again and the large sack of potatoes started to writhe and make groaning grunting noises in the seat next to me.

“What the fuck Denny? I told you not to hurt him, he’s fucking bleeding!”

“I had to hit him with the gun, big white boy wouldn’t come on his own, thought he was a tough guy.”

“Now I’m gonna have to clean him up, you better not have got blood on his tux,” she screeched.

“What the hell’s going on? Is this a prank? It’s not very funny,” the potato sack said in between pained groans.

“Paul! Is that you?” I said.

“Diana? Are you—?” he said groggily.

“Just stay cool,” I said.

“What the hell, Di?” my boyfriend groaned.

“What’s going on is, I’m not going to let you white trash pieces of shit ruin my senior prom.” Wendy’s voice got fast and high pitch. “Already close to ruined; having it in that fucking laser arcade. I wanted it at the beach club, but noooo that wasn’t cool enough for little miss ‘ooh look at me I’m so quirky and interesting!” She made a clucking noise in her throat, as if trying to get more spit in her mouth. “Me being the great friend I am, let it slide, but no you gotta stab me in the back and try to ruin it with your little knife in the dark Marco polo horror movie bullshit!” She tutted “I wasn’t taking any chances after getting that second corny note so I had Denny camp out in my closet just in case and look who happened by.”

“Wendy?” Paul asked. “What’s she talking about? What’s going?”

“Would you just shut up, you fucking meat head daddy’s boy retard!” She sucked her gums “It was probably you who sent me that weird video at school trying to freak me out” She scoffed “and what a coincidence yours was the only locker without a head—I can’t believe I didn’t see it until now” She took a deep breath and filled herself with sweetness and light and said. “We’re gonna be there soon, and we’re all gonna dance and have a great time; and then me and Brody are going to be crowned prom king and queen and then—”

“Then what?” I asked.

She laughed and I could feel her shifting closer to me, the leather creaking under her toned brown buns.

Wendy took the sleep mask off my face and put a small gun to my head, my small James Bond-type weapon, to be precise. She looked over at Paul and squeezed her thin spider leg eyebrows as tight as they would go. “Oh, for fucks sake!” She tutted as she pulled a tissue from her purse She spat in it rubbing furiously at the small nick at the side of Paul’s head where Denny had hit him. She stepped back after she was done, to get a good look at him. “There, you look great” She sat back in her seat in the front of the limo, with the small purse pistol trained on us. Wendy was in a gold taffeta dress, looking like a real princess.

Paul was in the tux my ‘aunt’ had picked out for him, tied to one of the arm rests with a plastic zip tie, the same as I was. He was slowly fading in and out of consciousness, like he’d taken a hit of Nyquil and whiskey.

The interior of the limo was huge. The ceiling was much higher than I’d expect, and coming in at a cool five-three I could probably comfortably stand up inside. It was almost as wide as a standard bus, with black leather couches on all sides, and a large bar-like table with cushioned corners all the way around, stretching across the length of the interior. To top it off, there were blue strobe lights around the ceiling, making it look almost like a mini-traveling strip club. It was missing the stripper pole though. No fog machine either.

I was wearing one of Wendy’s hand-me down-dresses she’d worn to the homecoming dance last year. It was a mess of pink lace that looked like an explosion in a cotton candy factory. Insult to injury received. Pretty in pink my ass.

“You two make such a cute couple.” She smirked. She tapped the glass between the passenger compartment and the driver’s cab. “Denny, you’re driving like an old lady, are we there yet?”

–

Yeah well you can’t read this version because I said so, maybe I’ll give it away at the end of the year but only for people on my mailing list so there haha. But you can read the raw free version right here but don’t because it sucks.

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Diana in the dark Chapter 11 ‘Dark lines’ (remurdered)

Here I go again recycling material. Well hey there, that wont be too long because I just finished furiously beating out the plan for Cur 2 and it turned out pretty nice and easy.

Although my plan to turn it into a five part series was sort of torpedoed because I basically decided that the structured would be better if I mashed two of my book ideas together. Otherwise I’d have had to come up with a bunch of filler to water down each concept and I didn’t want to make this middling story full of filler unconnected to the lore and plot.

Also laziness, pulling unconnected story out of your ass is hard and all I’m really doing with this is taking the actual mythology and give it connective tissue so it seems like a story and not just a bunch of stuff happening. So it’s not just X god did this, you understand their motivations, you know why they did it and how they feel about it.

So I’m just reciting mythology, I’m giving it life and taking a hell of a lot of liberties to do it. So I could insert huge swaths of unrelated story from different sources for instance some of what I added was from Arthurian legend and I added a tiny bit of Lovecraft because that’s just fun and forgive me for thinking a race of evil fish people should be a little lovecraftian haha.

But I didn’t want to take away from the plot and just have this little padded book, I want to write something I would read, I want adventure, I want a journey. I don’t want my characters to go to one place and be there the whole time, I want them to feel like I’ve gone with them. So to give it more scope I scraped two books and made one cohesive story.

It’s set to be a trilogy and I might just write them concurrently with clown shit in between haha. I basically don’t want to drip feed people this story or try and stretch it out like this is just a middle book, I want it to stand on it’s own and surpass the first which this definitely will. This book will make the first look a tiny in comparison by it’s scope. And then by the third book it will make the leap to epic fantasy, this second book is like the bridge from tight sword and sorcery pulp fantasy to epic sprawling huge battles fantasy.

Yeah so probably gonna start that next week but I feel like I should finish Loverman first just for the sake of my sanity. I’m imagining one person out there just ripping their hair out longing for a conclusion lurking just around the corner. Of course this person doesn’t exist or is more or less me. I’m just sort of feeling fantasy right now, sword and sorcery, also want to finish this boring red scare Shadow book so I can get back into Conan, which I’ve been really looking forward to.

Anyway that’s about all, just gonna be looking into more places I can send Cur to, maybe try and get more feedback on it because I think it sags a little towards the end. I dunno, I’ll wait for some objective opinions.

See you…

–

Locking doors was obviously for poor people who weren’t literally encircled by a small army of trigger happy ex-cops. Because Wendy was out prepping for the prom, it was certain she wouldn’t be here. I knew she had a brother but he was rarely home in the day, myths of an expensive heroin habit abounded. He’d probably stumble home much later, if at all.

The house should be empty but for an annoying little yappy dog she was banned from taking into school in her purse. Hopefully since the prom wasn’t at school, she’d probably have the annoying little rat with her, and I wouldn’t be tempted to pulp its head into an eight hundred dollar Persian rug.

I loved animals, but not that particular one.

I took a quick precautionary glance across the street, but thankfully aside from a team of illegals gardening two houses over, they were quiet. I guessed everyone was out living the good life, lounging around a golf course or a yacht or something. Aside from one guy eating noodles in his underwear and crying in a house he soon wouldn’t be able to afford.

I slipped into the house and closed the door firmly behind me. As I stood in the cool, sweet-smelling foyer, I felt okay. I was just a pretty rich girl coming home from yogalates, walking into her own home—no big deal. Nobody could call the cops over that. It wasn’t like I’d used a grappling hook and scaled the wall garden.

The interior was fresh and clean, cream interior walls with off-white, eggshell tiles on the floor. A staircase, carpeted in a darker cream snaked off from the oddly angled front door up to the bedrooms on the right. A big curtain-less window at the turn of the stairs let in lots of light.

I stopped in the hall and listened to the steady creak of silence. This confirmed the house was empty, so I let go of my breath and padded the tiles and dust off this new set of leathery predator wings.

The entryway opened up into a huge but very minimalist carpeted living room, it seemed to take up a whole corner of the house. It was very eighties deco, devoid of color, with a high ceiling that spanned both floors cut off by a balcony onto the second floor. There was a door off to the left, leading into a relatively small galley kitchen which was nevertheless very nice.

I wasn’t there for the tour, so it wasn’t like it mattered. I doubled back to the front door and started a slow ascent up the stairs. Looked outside the huge window at the turn, hoping not to see some nosey old woman staring at me and memorizing my face for a sketch artist to reproduce.

I figured if I was going to find any evidence at all of Wendy’s guilt, it wouldn’t be lying between the pages of a copy of Teen Vogue on the coffee table.

“Hey remember when I poisoned my dad and framed my mom for the money? Lol smiley face smile face xoxox.”

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but seemed unlikely. But who knew. She wasn’t like me, not the same kind of monster; a normal killer for a normal reason, a sane reason to do something insane, money was the root of all this.

So there was a chance Wendy wasn’t like me at all; there was a chance she had emotions. One of those possibly being guilt, and if that was true, she’d leave some trace of it behind.

My best bet was finding her computer and working a little slack hack magic on it, basically shake it and see what fell out.

I turned the corner, checking the window, but it was just the bare windowless face of the neighboring house staring back at me. I continued on up the second flight, noting an open bathroom off the stairs—seemed an odd place to put a bathroom.

The second floor split off in two directions, leading to the bedrooms. As far as I could remember, Wendy’s bedroom was off to the left, and her parent’s en suite was off to the right. Considering her parents weren’t in the picture anymore, it made little sense to not occupy the empty en suite.

It’s what I’d do, would have to be crazy to let all that closet space go to waste because of what? Sentimentality? Ghosts maybe?

I padded the carpeted floor delicately, hoping my light frame wouldn’t leave any telling footprints. Thankfully I’d remembered to not wear heels, and had opted for a set of flat treadless pumps.

I took the right, peering over the second floor balcony down at the living room and the large windows. It seemed like an average sleepy day in the neighborhood, not a curious dog walker in sight. Just sun shining and birds chirping.

Oh how I longed for the huge savage moon, and that black canvas of night to paint red.  ‘Soon,’ it hissed, and I knew it was right.

Soon I’d have my starry night and my bloody moon.

There was no rush; I’d started as early as I could. They’d be at the preparations until late into the afternoon. Factoring in Frappuccino and pastelito breaks, maybe some California tuna rolls. Skipping breakfast had been a mistake.

New rule; never break and enter on an empty stomach.

The hallway got a little narrower, I passed an airing cupboard and I could smell signs of a lived-in nature. More specifically, Wendy’s perfume; it seemed my estimation of her and our shared desire for closet space was on-point.

I entered, and was sort of surprised that the room was so small. Then I turned my head. I’d stepped into her closet.

I opened the door to her actual room and was instantly taken aback.

It was so… so…

Neat.

–

If you want to read more of this lovely book I’m probably going to be giving it away to people on my mailing list by the end of the year so join that and hold on to your butts. If you can’t wait that long just head on over to my inkitt page and read the raw version. It’s not all prim and proper but you’ll get the thrust.

 

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Diana in the Dark Chapter 8 ‘Love in high places’ (remurdered)

I know, I know, I’m milking this but I haven’t been writing recently and I’m growing lazy, just been messing around with this screenplay I’m writing.

It literally took me all weekend just to get the screenplay writing program to work, I’m that boomer with the tech stuff and then after that when I actually got started and reading the book it’s based on for inspiration. I decided I liked the books opening better than mine and then changed the whole thing haha.

It’s not totally the same obviously. I didn’t think it would work as an opener for the lack of action but I really like the visuals and how it sets up the character. The structure will be the same because the book is a similar format to the movie in that it starts later on when he’s already in a battle and then cuts back to his past before he signed up. But in the book it’s not just an intro cut away it’s this massive drawn out battle sequence which is cool and but I really think the movie handled it better in regards to letting us get a grip of our characters before throwing them in the fucking meat grinder haha.

I mean in this intro in the books Rasczak who leads the roughnecks is already dead and they’re not even fighting the bugs yet so it just gets way ahead of itself really.

The movie handled it a lot better in many ways but I still love the book, it’s just a little dry and the movie adds some much needed ‘wetness’ haha. So I’m really trying to merge them in my adaptation.

So far of what little I’ve written it’s been a fun experience, I tried to write some of that Lovecraft story while I was struggling with the screenplay software but got nowhere with it. I’ll probably finish it off soon but I just can’t bring myself to start on Diana 2 until I get feedback from agents for Diana 1. That being in tons of rejections most likely haha. But I will never quit because I have no fucking life, the person who has no life always wins haha.

Mainly just been reading the shadow (which is hit or miss really) and trying to find cheap videogames to stop me going insane or thinking about anything at all because that brings on bad times. The shadow is mostly boring honestly, it’s fun in parts but it’s weighed down by a lot of boring shit. I really liked the second one but the first and the third kinda just passed over my eyes.

Honestly though the character of the shadow is just so intriguing I think it could carry a really cool tv show if the right person (i.e me) were hired to cut down the fat and deliver a really punchy and slick show. It would be like a shitty marvel superhero show except with an actual story and actual mysteries and not just an excuse to indoctrinate children with political ideologies no one asked for. And also awesome action that would be unlike anything seen before, that would really set it apart.

The shadow really is a totally different kind of superhero, he really just keeps you guessing and I really like that, I feel like I as the reader know about as much about the shadow as his enemies do and he constantly surprises you with how inhuman and human he is at the same time. Like for a long time you can convince yourself that he’s this infallible supernatural being and then something happens and you realise he’s not. It’s really interesting. Anyway, I’ll try and have some Cur for thursday, maybe a poem for tomorrow but I’ve upped my weights, lifting heavier than ever, sleeping longer, eating more, I feel like a fucking cancer patient on chemo right now haha (i.e not very productive), so we’ll see.

See you…

–

I did as I was told. What else could I do?

I didn’t seem to remember a montage of ninja training in my backstory, no secret swat teams backing me up, rappelling down the roof as we speak.

My one and only knight in shining armor was probably on the other side of town with a hangover.

There I was, making little jokes to myself when my head was probably going to be decorating my own mantle in a matter of minutes.

Goodbye cruel world, we were going to have so much fun together.

I crept gingerly into the living room with the air of someone whose hand was permanently glued into the cookie jar; the proverbial curious cat, about to meet a sticky end.

It was dark, because of course it was, how else to set a mood? I couldn’t see a thing, completely pitch. A wave came over me, a sibilant ring from the demoniac back seat driver. A cold feeling at the back of my neck I assumed wasn’t the kiss of a Chanel No. 5 lipstick, but the barrel of a gun.

A hushed voice with a slight Latin twang told me to come closer.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw my aunt. Silent and solemn, on her knees in front of the couch in our living room. Her head hung like she was Marie Antoinette, awaiting the executioner’s axe with a cloistered dignity, she was about to let her captures eat cake.

I hoped they’d choke on it.

‘They’?

Then it struck me, the gun at my neck was still there, and there was another, a knife in the murk, a knife at my aunt’s neck.

There were two of them, two killers.

That made it a lot easier to lug all those parts around.

“What now, cuz?” The gun at my neck croaked with a boyish whisper.

“We do them here, no witnesses, the older bitch is yours, I’m gonna take my time with this one.” the voice I recognized said.

Hi, Antoine, great party last night.

He dropped my aunt, the knife coming away from her neck, and something deep inside told me that was good.

She was still and stoic, taking on the nature of a good martyr, no tears; just a distant and tacit acceptance; a cold detachment to the earthly plane.

The gun at my neck came around my side, and Ruiz got close enough so I could smell his breathe. “I bet you thought that was pretty funny, me all tied up like that, naked. I bet it made you feel really powerful.” He spat in the dark but I could see the odd white tooth and feel the knife twist under my chin.

I wasn’t afraid, there was something else; a shiver of cool excitement rising up from the darkness. The blackness gently shifted, building silently beneath the waves trying to tell me… What? ‘I told you so’?

“How do you feel now, huh?” he taunted.

“I—”

I was rudely interrupted by a crash of glass.

The room almost turned red with their fear, their shock.

Their perfect bubble burst by some idle cat burglar, or maybe my neighbor, Gary got carried away showing someone his backswing.

“Go check it out,” Ruiz whispered.

“Why me?” the younger one croaked behind me. My eyes were getting used to the dark but all I could see was the ceiling fan spinning.

“Because I said so,” Ruiz hissed. He turned his head to spit on our carpet.

Yuck.

“Fuck me, man,” The younger would-be killer said, as he tiptoed out of the room.

Ruiz got close again, his breathing rising and falling on my face. “I bet you’re wondering how I found you. It wasn’t the phone…”He stopped, panting, as if he wanted me to ask.

Wanted me to play some guessing game, I just looked at Aunt Dharma. There was something strange about her, something unsettling.

She said nothing, looked at nothing, like she’d expected this, like she was already dead. Like she’d been waiting for this the whole time.

“My cousin, Emilio, he goes to your school, ain’t that a trip? I described you, and he knew right away who you were, I think he must have some kind of crush on you.” He laughed. “Maybe I should let him drill you when he comes back, maybe we’ll take turns before we mount your head like you and your freak boyfriend did to my boys.”

School. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. All the faces in the crowd, blending together. So hard to pick one out, one looking at me, seeing me, waiting, watching.

That was the last place I should’ve let my guard down but I had. Emilio had probably sat behind me for years, and we wouldn’t have exchanged a qué pasa? I guess my Spanish was getting better.

There was no silent alarm from the dark watcher, no ring on the black bat phone? Surprise washed over me. A distant warbling chuckle faded in and out. An unintelligible whisper; a game of hide and seek.

Oh you were playing possum. I’m being punished, for what?

What did I do? Dreadfully Dim Diana didn’t do anything wrong.

That was exactly the point.

I was being punished for being a goodie two shoes.

What now?

“I know you didn’t do all that alone, little girl like you. You had help.” He was panting even heavier, looking around, the shadows creeping along the walls, soaking into his flesh, getting closer. He put the knife against my throat. “Who you working for, huh? The Diaz brothers? They closing in on my turf? Tell, and I’ll only cut off an ear, and leave your pretty face alone, how ‘bout that?”

Another crash came from the kitchen, then a muffled cry and a deeply disconcerting thud.

“Hey, Emilio, hurry your ass up!” Ruiz whispered harshly into the empty hallway.

“Maybe he tripped, it’s pretty dark.”

“Shut up!”

“You should go check on it, maybe he grazed his knee.”

“I said, shut up!” He hit me with the base of the knife, and the room shook, a pulse of pain radiating down through my neck and shoulders.

My knees buckled, and nausea smacked into me. My vision faded in and out, and I saw something. I could see right through him, hear the animal roar.

The shrill cry of whatever it was inside him; it was like me, but not like me. Our inner demons sent vicious feral war cries out in answer.

Two shadows stretched and crossed, but then another, deeper darkness swallowed them both. Eclipsed them, blotted them out, filled the room with a deep impenetrably black smoke thicker than ink and tar.

My knees wobbled, and he felt it, too.

“Emilio, what took you so long man?”

The boy stood in the door way, doing the strong silent type thing as the room quaked around me.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

The eye of the hurricane tossed my little world up into the stars as I tried to hold on for dear life.

I fell, pulling at Ruiz, trying to stop the room from spinning, just keep still.

Could he feel it?

“Talk to me man— Get offa me, crazy bitch!” He threw me to the ground.

I spread my fingers out on the carpet, praying for this feeling to stop, the pressure inside building.

The cry of the thing inside grew louder and louder, telling me to watch.

“What the fuck, say something, you’re freakin’ me out, man!” Ruiz commanded his cousin. He strode to the door…then he felt it; the pressure, the animal fear, the dagger intent, the murder dripping from the walls, but it was too late.

I heard rustling of dark wings unfurling, stretching across the walls, casting a shadow blacker than pitch.

I can see it in the corner of my eye, but moreover I felt it, like I had sonar, echo location. I could see the whole room like it was a watercolor, every pixel laid out in front of me in stark detail.

The blackness like a piece of pin art, it was solid, I could touch it.

I crawled, and I spotted the knife.

The figure at the door moved rhythmically, like he was under water, but couldn’t seem to get out of the way.

Ruiz was frozen, the weapon in his hand at the end of a long tunnel. His movements slowed down as if I was seeing it frame by frame in a slideshow.

He lifted the knife, not knowing exactly where he wanted to put it, or if there was even a place for it.

The shadows surrounded the man at the door, covering his face, bound to him like an impenetrable armor.

I wanted to cover my eyes and ears, if I could, if I thought it would keep the screaming out.

The shadowy fires lapped at me, the blinding black light.

The man at the door cut through the room. His movements were methodic and powerful, uncaring, unfeeling, unwavering.

The killer passed through Ruiz like he was made of spider webs, like he was a memory of a far gone conclusion. He cut him once across the neck with an effortless flourish, an afterthought someone else’s mess cleaned up, my mess.

Ruiz’s head dropped to the floor and rolled toward me. There was nothing in his eyes. A voided emptiness, a perfect mirror of my own.

The part of me deep down, was rising, screaming and laughing. I couldn’t tell if this was the end or the beginning. A triumphant cavalry cry, or the last gasp of a dying lizard about to have its head crushed under a desert rock.

The crushing pressure, I couldn’t take it anymore, the blackness folding over me, getting heavier and heavier. I decided to let go, a giddiness and a drowsiness came over me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The rattling thing inside told me it was okay—I could sleep.

“You see it now?” A muffled scratching noise warbled too close to my ear.

There was a grating sensation at my neck, then nothing but sweet black nothingness.

Falling.

–

To read the rest of this you’re gonna have to wait for it to come out sometime next year hopefully, if not you can find it on inkitt in a raw format.

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Diana in the Dark Chapter 7 ‘Ding dong dead’ (remurdered edition)

I’m back! 

Sorta

Kinda

Not really?

I am happy to report Diana for all intents and purposes is as done as I’ll probably ever get it, despite wanting a near infinite number of proof read from myself and any passerby on the street. As long as I can quiet that perfectionist voice in my head, it is done.

Now that that colossal time and energy suck and… Diana is done with (ha I made a joke about being single), I can move onto greater things which don’t include finishing Loverman. Yeah I might finish that but I dunno, it kind of feels like a slog. Like I have to be in a Lovecrafty mood really and I can’t seem to get there right now, but I will finish it eventually, sooner than later.

But I’ll tell you what I have been in the mood for, not writing so much as screen writing, that’s right, your boi is writing a pilot for a tv show, why? Because it was already a book and I want to see a tv show of it because, well ok there was already a tv show but it was in the 90’s I think and it was awful. Well it was good, but it kind of butchered both the movie and the book and was made of the shittest cg you’ve ever seen.

Now I’m realising I haven’t actually mentioned what it is, it’s Starship Troopers, I’m planning a tv show pilot for Starship Troopers.

I just liked the book, not as much as the films or tv show but I think a tv is really what it needs to really flesh out the world it takes place in and although I would to not write the show and just enjoy it as a member of the audience. The current state of television guarantees that it would suck the sweat off a deadman’s balls.

The reason being that it’s too tempting as a platform for satire and political narrative pushing. We wouldn’t get past the first episode without some joke about Trump’s hair and orange skin, it would be a fucking disaster.

Only someone like me could do it justice, not because I’m a genius writer, well, but because I actually fucking respect the source material enough to not just to bastardise and attempt to use it to push my own brand of brainwashing. Which funnily enough Paul Verhoeven tried and failed to do in his movie version of the book.

Because believe it or not the book is completely played straight, it’s not satire. Heindlin was an ex navy right wing guy growing up in a more conservative time and he saw a future where liberalism would tear society apart and thus envisioned a future military fascist government piecing it back together again.
Verhoeven, a great director, Robocop is probably one of my all time favourite films, tried to satirise the book and add his own brand of humor to try and make fun of and demonize the fascism glorified in the book but he just sort of made it look cool and fun haha.

I kinda wanna do both honestly. I want it to be played straight but you can’t sidestep how fun Verhoeven made it in the movie. Surely some ideal balance can be struck where you can satirise the necessary evil of fascism and glorify the order and stability of it at the same time. I want to have satire but not at the expense of the story or the fun.

That’s my number one goal always, entertainment. I don’t write to preach to people or ‘educate’ them. I write to entertain myself and others and that’s all. I think when you focus too much on a particular ideology or message you lose the ability to have fun and tell an interesting story. 
I have nothing against having a good moral message in a story though if say it’s a show for kids but I don’t write for kids and adults don’t need to be preached to about morality or whatever hair brained social justice cause is popular in the zeitgeist in any particular moment.

So what have I been up to apart from not doing that, I haven’t even started writing, still anally planning haha. Erm lots of exercising as usual, my chest is on fire as we speak, gonna need new weights soon, getting to yuge for these ones haha. Relationships janky as fuck as usual but I’m not letting it get me down I’m really hopeful about getting an agent for Diana and if I don’t get one now I think I’ll try again in September with a better cover letter. And in the mean time work on my pilot and maybe get a sequel to Diana in the works which I’ve been planning for awhile but haven’t had the guts to clinch on. 

I’m kinda just waiting for the wind to strike me on that one, I don’t want to start it too soon, I want to savour and start it at a time when I can really enjoy it.

Oh also had a great time recently playing the Resident Evil 2 remake which I might do a review for tomorrow. It’s a lot of fun unsurprisingly. Some people are shitting on it a little bit but all in all it was a lark. So stay tuned for that, I think I’m gonna go back to planning my pilot and waiting for my main facebook account to be unbanned so I get back to spamming and shitposting haha.

See you…

 

–

Hot, sticky, red.

Its blood isn’t it?

Blood?

All over the floor.

It smells, I don’t like it.

Why is it here?

All over the carpet.

Where am I?

Why did you do that?

A big mess.

 

Blood all over the floor, spreading and getting thicker, like a dark red plastic, coating everything. A child’s room, bunk beds, bright colors. Where was this place?

Something rose from the blood, the sea of thick hot red plastic. A head coated in it like it was molten wax. Then another and another, bobbing like croutons in a rich tomato soup.

My vision was a tiny cone surrounded by blackness, small hands, a child’s hands reached for the heads, turning them over one by one.

I recognized their faces but couldn’t place them. Buried somewhere, a tinkling, a mocking laugh and the slamming of a heavy door and they were gone.

A feeling of loss, of loss of loss. Losing something that never existed, something I never had taken before I even knew it was there.

The little hand reached for mine, and it told me to come and play. I wanted to. I wanted to so badly, but I couldn’t. Something held me back.

I woke up again, a cold sweat; it was dark. I maybe got two hours sleep on Paul’s couch.

We could’ve used the bed, of course, but I couldn’t drag him much farther than the living room. He was a big boy.

Once I’d gotten him down, I’d wanted to stay with him and make sure he was okay.

Some motherly instinct kicking in, Diana?

Channeling a little Florence Nightingale perhaps?

Hardly, a good mask needed a touch up now and then, like anything else. Soon enough, after lying next to him, the sandman had snuck up on me and wrapped a ten pound fishing cord of sleep around my neck.

I’d fallen asleep right on top of him. Now I awoke again in the wee hours of the morning, he was gone.

Paul came in after a minute or two with a glass of water and sat back on the couch like he didn’t even notice I was there. He cleared his throat and took in a big deep breath, then proceeded to take sips from his water. He yawned and hunched forward in only a pair of stripy boxer shorts. The glass perched in between his large smooth hands. “Oh, you’re up,” he said. “I was just getting some water; I didn’t want to disturb you.” A little sad smile crossed his face.

“I can see that.” I said.

“Here.” Paul handed me the glass.

I took a big gulp from it. I suddenly felt utterly bottomless, and wanted to down the entire thing. It felt like we’d never talk about what’d happened, and that was kind of how I wanted it. Pretend it’d never happened. Just let it slip off the cuff, a very interesting dream soon forgotten.

“What happened back there?” he asked, rather ineloquently breaking my fantasy of a night lost. Murderous pirate ships passing in the night.

“You don’t remember,” I stalled.

He cleared his throat and looked off into the corner of the ceiling above the TV.  “Um… I remember drinking a little and then—” He shrugged his large round shoulders. “I dunno, I guess someone jumped me and everything went black.” Paul sucked in some air from his teeth and went back to nursing the now half-empty glass. “I woke up here, and my gun was gone.” He sighed like he was talking about a botched boy scouts camping trip as he stared into the glass. “My dad is gonna kill me”.

“Doesn’t he have lots of guns? I’m sure he won’t notice one missing.” I said.

Diana deft subject dodger.

“You don’t know my dad.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’ll have to tell him it was stolen.” He scrunched his shoulders up around his ears as some sort of stretch.

I heard a cracking sound and found myself staring at the muscles around his chest and back. He was shirtless, and I had to admit I had some fascination with the play of his muscles.

“Yeah you can’t tell him you lost it in a fight in a drug dealer’s house.”

Shut up, Diana.

Paul let out a self-deprecating sound, halfway between a laugh and a cough as he choked on some water.

We gave up on sleep after that and had a quick shower—separately. I had to change back into my previous set of clothes. Which was a little disgusting for dainty Diana, but I couldn’t exactly skip school the day after another massacre. Even if the whole finding body parts at school thing could’ve bought me a little credit.

A few short hours later, I stood in front of my locker again, staring at the space left by the volleyball. I inhaled and sighed, taking in all the smells of the pretty people passing me. Their talking all mixed together into an interminable cacophony of inane chirping, or tweeting. The occasional chortle and hushed whisper.

Did I hear my name?

–

If you want to read the rest of the final version you’ll have to wait until it’s out or find the horrible raw version on inkitt haha.

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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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Diana After Dark Chapter 17 ‘Waltz me to the grave’

Ok so I’m kinda cheating today because I didn’t have time to proofread the next chapter for Cur despite promising one a week. But I’m going away for a bit and I’ve been busy packing and getting a haircut and waiting on hold with the bank all day so I haven’t had time. But I should have one out next week possibly and then I’ll be gone for a week and after that it’s back to normal for a hell of a long time haha.

Not much to comment on today, didn’t really bitch about the witcher because I’ve said all I have to say really. It’s uninspired and sort of boring with it’s good sections but there’s not really enough there to hold my interest.

On the other hand I started the next Parker book and was a little disappointed when this one again started with the heist. I like the planning and the build up. But it has this really cool element where he’s trying to hide the money and himself in an abandoned amusement park closed up for the winter from a bunch of dirty cops who want his heist money.

So it’s setting up to be like a lethal version of home alone and I really like it. So instead of having the heist set up you have like a siege set up which is just as fun.

It should be a good romp, didn’t have any time to read it today but I’ll find some time.

In the mean time you can read this chapter, ok well it’s not a chapter of Diana in the Dark, more of an epilogue. And yes I realise I use those titles interchangeably.

But yeah gotta do other things.

See you…

–

Epilogue Waltz me to the grave

“Oh Paul, oh Paul” I said pretending to weep as they lowered the coffin into the ground.

As fate would have it this was the first funeral I’d ever been to, although I sincerely doubted it would be my last. I actually kind of like it, there was a comfort in the routine of it, the ceremony was soothing. Everyone gathered together to think the nicest possible thoughts of the dearly departed wearing their nicest clothes. There was solemn dignity and lots of tears real or otherwise.

But it was a lovely service, flowers, tearful speeches from people I barely knew and the promise of cake in the near future.

“Oh Paul” I wept again into a balsam tissue.

“Shhh” he said as he patted my head, resting it on his shoulder.

Thankfully he remembered very little of our little midnight drive into the middle of nowhere. A combination of all the blows to the head and a cocktail of drugs concocted by my dear brother. My dear brother who was not yet dearly departed but still on the run. From what I couldn’t say because as far as the Orange County PD were concerned Antoine Ruez was and forever will be the Huntington Beach Headsman. A title far above his station. And as far as my brother had any say in it, Ruez would never be found and the myth, the meme, could live on forever. The evil slasher come to life to terrorize a group of innocent teens on prom night.

There was something about that the normies liked, a divine ritual fulfilled. Like Hollywood had been setting them up for this very occurrence and been vindicated in the best possible way. Slipped right in place into their cultural consciousness like it was another Friday night.

I continued to pretend to cry, just making the noise of crying and covering my face, constantly batting away fake tears, no one was watching.

“You need another tissue?” My Au-Sister Mary Anne said pulling a fresh pack out of her purse and giving me a tight restrained smile. I think we settled on my just calling her my Aunt, Aunt-sister was a bit of a mouthful and calling her by her name just felt weird. Plus I really didn’t want to get bogged down in explaining to people that she wasn’t actually my aunt. But in fact my estranged half-sister pretending to be my aunt because we watched our real aunt butchered before our eyes. And then put on display like a hunting trophy by our brother. That all seemed best tucked away for a rainy day.

“Thanks” I said as I took the tissues smiling a nice fake smile, far better than my Brother’s. My estimation of how deep the knife penetrated my aunt’s side was off by a wide margin. I would have assumed he didn’t want to kill her but necessity for his own life had forced him to act. Similarly the shot being off centre, it would have been nice to think she extended him the same courtesy but that might have been a stretch since she mostly carried really strong pepper spray giving out tickets in cycle shorts. Never the less her arm was in a fashionable sling or some reason. I never understood why they did that in movies, he didn’t stab her in the arm.

A sudden prodding feeling roused me from my daydream and I looked over at the grave and the nice picture they had over it. It was the one of the several taken at her sweet sixteen. Wendy did look nice in that one, so full of life. Who would suspect her of anything worse than forgetting to floss? That feeling again, like someone walking over my grave, someone drilling little hot holes in the back of my head.

I looked around at the crowd of her fake friends, the rest of the cheerleading squad, her many exes the last not withstanding and me, her best friend and then I saw her. She was hard to miss now that I noticed her. Dressed as she was in correctional facility orange chained to two cops looking up from the grave to send me icy daggers. Her hair long and greasy looking made curtains of a plain white flat unmade face. Prison make-unders are a real thing. What did they have against makeup in prison? It’s not like eyeliner was against the law. Conditioner even.

Wendy’s mother, the one currently on trial for the murder of her husband. Looking right at me. Not around, not past me but through me. Singled out.

She knew.

I could see it in her face.

I don’t know how she knew but I’d find out, when that happy vicious moon was smiling high in the sky again, D and I would ask nicely.

–

Waltz me to the grave

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Diana After Dark Chapter 16 ‘Dark Descendants’

Yoyoyo- and that’s enough of that.
Gonna keep this one terse because I want to get right into more proofreading and editing, had a bit of a weird week. I dunno, I finally got all my day job work stuff and Diana editing out of the way and then I sat down to write Cur and I was just fucking braindead haha. Isn’t that always the way, fucking sods law. 

I dunno, I just felt sort of tired and run down and it was like getting blood out of a stone, nothing like the first week. Writing is weird like that, it’s like the weather, there are good days (in this case weeks) and bad. But I had to write something so I stayed the course telling myself that today I would fix all the lazy bullshit haha. I met a nice quota just barely hammering out the plot. I made a few hotfixes I think help the story a long and I’m feeling my villain. I’m worried he might be more sympathetic than my hero now but that might be exactly what I want haha.

So I’m gonna keep on trucking with that, I just sent out my mailing list newsletter with the freebies so that should find it’s way to you if you’re reading this. I meant to send it out last week but I was busy and it just fell out of my head, better late than never though. No updates really beside that I watched war for the planet of the apes and it really rustled me so I might do a review on that just to get it out haha.

That’s about all.

See you…

–

I just sat there for a moment looking down at it, turning it in my hand, getting a feel for the weight. The weight of his words swishing around in my head. I didn’t have to ask if they were true, it just made some sort of insane sense, a puzzle piece falling into place, this was what I waiting for.

“What do I do?”

“Whatever you want.” He smiled.

A lapping feeling of dark waves pouring over me, covering me, feet first. It was like a dream, like a wish. A whole dark world opened up before me, welcoming me in like some returning hero from long exile. I was home, whatever that meant. I went from a sad emo only child with a serial killer blog to Dark Diana mistress of the damned with not one but two siblings of the night at her side, more or less.

“Oh yeah” He said suddenly raising to a mid-crouch, the ceiling being far too low for his stature. He leaned over Wendy and opened each eye and then gave her a few little love taps to bring her just to the brink of consciousness. “I gave them just a little more than you to keep them under. I didn’t know whether you wanted them to talk, sometimes I like them to talk, confess, scream, spit.” He paused and looked down at her like she was Christmas ham and then looked back up at me and smiled that plastic smile. “It seems necessary sometimes but it’s up to you. I think she’s passed a confession at this point.”

“I know all I need to.” I said stonily.

“I figured as much.” He smirked.

Wendy’s head rolled back and forth and her eyes fluttered open and she looked around confused. Unable to move her head as it was pinned with plastic wrap across her forehead. She saw me and her eyes got hot and spicy, I could almost see blood squirting out of them.

I could feel it then, my heart pounding, the dark dancer gripping the knife, moving my hand, my feet moving on their own, letting go, letting it take me as it purred incessantly in my ears. I stood like someone yanked my strings and glided over by her side and looked down at her. She was beautiful, a perfect specimen really, it was a shame. A beautiful tragedy.

She was my friend, kind of. That’s what made it special I guess, the setting, the night, the company. She looked up at me with wide terrified eyes now, she saw the knife, she could feel the squashing pressure of it now. The helplessness, the hopelessness. The cornered animal anger leaving and being replaced with a dreadful solipsism. She could feel it now, see it in my empty eyes, she knew she was about to be swallowed, there was no other way. Not a muscle she could move, not a penny she could spend, not an eyelid she could flutter. Nothing would spare her this, this was fate, this was the end, her end and it was as beautiful and poetic one as I could ever hope to see.

Only one question savaged me; Where to start?

–

For the rest of the chapter and to read the others head on over to inkitt.
Dark Descendants

 

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