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Dr Sleep – Review

I went into this movie totally unbiased, I like the original shining, not a huge fan of Stephen King though, I think his writing is hacky, ok well that’s an understatement I think his face should be next to the definition of a hack writer. I don’t even really like most of the film adaptations of his work, I’m just aware of them but I can’t think of many that are very memorable other than as memes. Like Misery is an ok movie but I wouldn’t watch it more than once, same with Pet cemetery and silver bullet, they’re ok movies but they’re not something you keep coming back to. In a lot of ways once you’ve seen one King movie you’ve sort of seen them. And after some tepid reviews on youtube I thought this was movie was going to pass me by.

But that being said I have watched the shining quite a few times and I could see myself watching this again and again but it was just such a fun, cool movie. I really unironically enjoyed every minute of it. It was fun, interesting, heartfelt, sad at times, shocking at others but it constantly kept me engaged and interested and had some real ‘hell yes’ moments which were surprising. It succeeds not only in being a sequel to a great movie but also in being it’s own movie entirely. This is to the Shining what Aliens is to Alien. It’s not copying the previous movie, it evolved from it into something new and all together interesting in its own right and I really respect that.

So the movie is set after the shining and the main character is a grown up Danny Torrence played by Ewan Mcgregor. Danny is tormented by the spirits of the dead and the death of his own mother and thus driven to alcohol and substance abuse which seems like a logical response. But as fate would have it he gets a second chance and finds meaning and friendship working in hospice care helping the elderly come to terms with death and it’s both really sweet and heart rending. Me and my brother joked that this could also serve as a weird sequel to Sixth sense haha.

But at the same time this is happening you’re also following a gang of literal fucking vampires as they trek across america in camper vans like Near Dark recruiting and turning other people who shine and brutally torture and kill children to suck out their shine which they call ‘steam’. Basically how this idea has evolved in the sequel is that shine is like a literal substance and I know what you’re thinking, star wars and medicloreans and yeah I thought the same (that and it being Ewan Mcgregor again haha) but this goes in a much cooler direction with it. Because it turns out that people like Danny have existed for a long time and you can live a long time if you drain this power from others like you. So this group of basically psychic vampires seek out children to drain of their essence. The reason they target children is because the steam is pure and untainted and the first time they do it they sort of cut away but the next time you see them do it they literally slice this kid to pieces torturing him because pain and fear purifies the steam.

Now the first part of the movie just with Danny putting his life together could be a movie on it’s own, it’s sweet and interesting and sort of horrifying, it could’ve just been a nice supernatural drama oscar bait movie but you add this second layer with the psychic vampires and it almost becomes a bad ass Carpenter movie. It’s such a cool direction to take it in.

I really liked the villains because they seem almost like anime villains like the vampires in Near Dark but also really normal at the same time. They don’t seem or look like monsters, especially the main villain but she’s a fucking psycho who takes pleasure in cutting up kids basically. They’re all sort of believable and understandable, they see themselves almost as forces of nature, not as good or evil or monsters.

You have this great dichotomy between Danny’s story and the villains and you’re just waiting for them to collide. It makes me miss this type of film making, any other film maker would show you the villain once and then you wouldn’t see them again for an hour but in this you follow them almost as much as Danny which I love because you’re really getting to know all the vital characters.

The story is pretty simple in that Danny basically becomes psychic pen pals with this really powerful little girl during the eight years he’s putting his life back together. But during that time the little girl has come onto the radar of the vampires after she psychically witnesses one of their murders so now they want her because she has more steam than they’ve ever seen before. Because there’s a plot line basically where they haven’t been eating very well lately, the steam is drying up, they’ve been living on scraps so they’re sort of desperate for a big score.

The little girl called Abra reaches out to Danny to help her against the vampires so this is where the movie goes from interesting and fun to fucking awesome haha. It essentially becomes a really cool vampire movie with psychic powers and of all the ways this could’ve been done it happens in the best way possible. This could’ve been really silly like a stupid comic book movie, I wont spoil it but the confrontations with the actual vampires are really cool and grounded and awesome and hard hitting and clever. The end fight puts a nice capstone on the first movie without shitty sequel bait.

The movie very tastefully uses things from the original shining, it borrows from it and references in a way that is very respectful of the original. Sure they use new actors to play his mother and father and Dick Halorann but the performances are very subdued and they’ve picked actors that look a lot like them and they’re used sparingly.

Now a lot of people me included would be forgiven for saying “The shining doesn’t need a sequel” and you’d be totally right and there are lots of old movies that get sequels nobody asked for that serve just to squeeze money out of an old franchise manipulating people with nostalgia. This is probably 99% of the time but there is the 1% that is exception to the rule and this and maybe the Blade Runner sequel (which is hotly contested) are sequels that add to the original movie but are entirely their own movies and are good in their own right. Doctor Sleep is that in spades.

Like I could watch Doctor Sleep never having watched the shining and still enjoy it. You could show someone who’s never read King or watched a single one of his movie adaptations and they will enjoy this movie. The acting is great, the story and premise are fun, the action is surprisingly good, the effects are decent. Now I’m not gonna bullshit you and say the camera work and cinematography are on the level of Kubrick but they emulate him slightly and are competent. It’s not trying to copy the original, only call back to it for context.

In summary there’s no reason you shouldn’t see this movie, if you like supernatural thrillers, if you’re a King fan or just like the Shining or even if you like Near Dark or Scanners and weird fun movies like that. Hell if you just like Ewan McGregor go see this movie, I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about, I kinda wish it was a tv show just so we could have more of it, it’s such a cool premise. But as a movie it’s a perfect package, made by people who know how to make movies.
To a lot of people this will feel like an older movie because it follows a proper formula, film makers today try to subvert story telling conventions thinking they’re above them but they can’t see those conventions are there for a reason and without them movies just feel like a sloppy unsatisfying mess. You will come out of this movie satisfied you watched a real movie. This is without a doubt my movie of 2019, go see it.

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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.

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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 14 ‘Two way street’ (Remurdered)

Hey there,

Been a kinda meh week, writing wise specifically, I couldn’t seem to get into the groove until yesterday really. I just sort of muddled through it a little bit not quite sir where I was going but it’s getting there, it’s taking shape.

Specifically in part two I started getting into it and feeling the story a bit more. I think the plot overall is pretty good, you have like an A plot and a B plot and then they progress separately and then intertwine and come together at the end. I think this one might be better received because there’s a lot more stuff happening and maybe it’s more or less convoluted than the first one haha. More characters more villains, tonnes more villains.

Remember this was meant to be two books so it has as many boss battles as a fucking videogame haha. Villains coming out of my ears, I ripped one right out of a lovecraft story while I was writing the synopsis so you know he’s racist! No, he’s a weird zombie thing, his personal opinions on the other races will not be divulged. Although I have a sneaking suspicion he hates fish people but so do most people in this book.

Come to think of it this whole series is about literal race wars, in fact most fantasy books are, jesus fantasy is racist haha.

But I still have a fair bit to proof read, I’ll clean up a lot of it there but I’m happy the direction it’s going, we’ll just have to wait and see. Now here’s more of this fill- I mean great content from Diana in the dark again but better.

See you…

–

Whatever the esoteric message of the photocopy meant, I didn’t have enough time to make any sense of it.

A tight popping cracking noise of a microphone being tapped and tested sounded, then a nasally voice filled the whole room. “Folks, can I have your attention please?” Principle Maria Petro said.  She stood looking down from the balcony, dressed a little like a character from the fifth element in a leopard print onesie?

Cat suit? What are those called? It actually fit with the neon space jungle theme.

She was a short stodgy woman with a nest of badly dyed hair that resembled ramen noodles. She stood under what looked like a brightly-lit star gate or arch, her hair done up as high as it would go.

Thankfully it was a high ceiling, without any fans or low hanging lights. Her face was a perfect mask of confidence and years of stored up aggression from dealing with the most spoiled kids on earth. All the make up in the world couldn’t cover up those frown lines.

“Ahem, good evening, everybody, I hope you’re all having a great time.” Pause for effect. Looking down at her subjects, expecting an answer or maybe an uproarious applause. Ms. Petro cleared her throat and continued on without it. “It’s my pleasure to announce this year’s senior prom queen and king.”

I made my way back over to Paul, strategically elbowing people in their solar plexuses. Solar plexi? Swimming through the crowd, only spilling about half the contents of each cup on other people’s rented shoes. I handed him one.

“Thanks.” He smiled for a moment, then stood bolt upright and his eyes got a little wider.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Err…”

“Don’t say shit!” a coiled voice hissed.

“Wendy?”

“No, it’s the fucking tooth fairy!”

“What are you?” Paul asked looking over his shoulder, but keeping his neck stiff.

Wendy stepped out of his large shadow and poked him in the side with that deadly DG purse, her hand inside it.

I imagined not clasped around her lip gloss. Her hair was coming undone, rogue strands now sticking in places to her patchy fake tan, running from the sweat.

“Brodie stood me up!” she said, shooting me a glare like it was my fault. “They’re about to announce it now, and the queen needs a king, got it?” She spat through her expensive bridgework. “So I’m just gonna borrow yours, you got a problem with that?”

“Err…” I said, eloquent as ever.

“It’s okay, it’s cool,” Paul said as he tried his best not to look as stiff as Frankenstein’s monster with a hand up his ass.

“Walk.” Wendy was still glaring at me.

Paul seemed as if he was resisting the urge to raise his hands like a hostage and started to pad slowly toward the balcony stairs.

There was no direct access to the stage.

Wendy poked him through a set of doors, and they disappeared—hopefully to reappear on the other side of the star gate in one piece. There was an awfully long pause and silence that followed.

“I’m happy to announce—” Principle Petro unsealed a sparkly envelope, very glamorous. She unsheathed a gold piece of card. “This years prom king and queen are…” Sudden sounds of a scuffle could be heard behind her, then a dull pop and another before a shrill scream.

The room froze trying to recognize the din.

Wendy burst out onto the stage, the small pistol in her hand. A ruby red stream of blood flowed from an obviously broken nose.

Paul was nowhere to be seen.

“Gimme that!” She snatched the studded prom queen tiara from Principle Petro’s hand, and shoved the woman out of the way. She tried to pin it to her head with the gun still in her hand. Once it was level, she scanned the room of all the faces still frozen in stunned silence.

Her existence was now a morbid curiosity, a downward spiral, a car crash happening in slow motion.

She saw me looking up at her. Part of me wondering if Paul was still alive, but the other was distinctly darker, and couldn’t keep my smirk at bay. Here I was, a peasant in the crowd watching a debutante fall face first in the mud, and I couldn’t stop the muscles in my face tensing into something like a smile.

“Fucking bitch! This is all your fault!” Wendy screamed and aimed the small weapon. She started firing wildly into the crowd I happened to be mingled in. The tiara drooped down and tangled in her hair as she cried.

Luckily this was probably her first school shooting, in her hands that little pistol was about as deadly as a spud gun and there was just far too much confusion to hit anyone in particular.

The crowd predictably woke from their frozen morbidity, erupting into a flurry of fight or flight lizard brain comprehension. They stampeded toward the nearest exit. Climbed all over each other so as not to become the lucky recipient of a nine millimeter kiss blown from a killer queen.

My first instinct, unlike that of a mere prey species, was not to fight or to flight but to hide and wait. Watch and see. I told myself I couldn’t leave without knowing what happened to Paul. He wouldn’t abandon me, and I couldn’t let my mask slip off completely without at least trying to save face. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I just ran and melted into the maddening crowd of lurching farm animals, leaving him to bleed to death?

The exits were currently expurgating a constant stream of furious humanity. The true meaning of an ancient Roman vomitorium now fully realized. Another fortuitous exit was marked out for me with a sign above the alcove that read, “The glow zone.”

I broke from the herd and darted for the exit, looking up to make sure she noticed I was distinct from the throng. She cursed in Spanish and fired a warning shot over the bow of the balcony, missing and chipping the horsehead ice sculptor. “Go Trojans!”

Wendy banged the guard rail of the balcony and disappeared into the back.

I pushed past a door with a porthole in it; it flapped shut behind me like a saloon door, screeching loud.

In the laser arcade equipment room, racks of laser tag sets hung from multi-colored racks glowing with the magic of LED. An instructional video on game safety was playing in a loop. A middle aged Hispanic man with a shaved head and set of terminator sunglasses appeared on screen, instructing me on how to safely clip on one of the vests in a succinct monotone.

Thanks but no thanks, a glowing piece of plastic on my chest wouldn’t do me much good in a gun fight.

Never bring a glowing plastic laser gun to a gunfight, Diana.

–

 

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Diana after dark Chapter 12 ‘Wandering limbs’ (remurdered)

Yoyoyo

Gonna be a tight one today because I’m being chased by the black dog and I have other things I need to do.

I really don’t have anything to say today I just feel so shitty and I have no one to talk to. I just feel like this is the end, I’ve been holding on for a long time and I just don’t think I can hold on anymore. All I’m doing is trying to forget and medicate with video games and writing (mostly video games) and I don’t think I can keep doing this. There’s just something wrong with me and I’ll never be who I want to be, I’ll just fade away.

That’s all.

–

“You can’t do that to me, I was worried sick,” my ‘aunt’ said as she squeezed the cheap plastic steering wheel of her overgrown roller-skate car. Shouting but in a hushed voice like we were in a crowded place. “You can’t stay out late like that without telling me, I must’ve called you a hundred times.”

I counted twenty two missed calls, actually.

I would much rather not have had this one-way conversation. I also would much rather not have had to wait the four or five hours it took for Wendy to go to sleep before I could slip out and get on a bus home. Lastly, I would much rather have avoided the various California-natives who frequented the late night buses. Talk about dick pics. Surely not as distressing as seeing someone in person, urinating on the floor of a moving bus, while singing Waltzing Mathilda in a sequin dress.

“I’m sorry.” I didn’t mean it. The word ‘sorry’ was sort of meaningless. If someone was truly sorry, they’d never do what they were sorry for ever again—or in the first place, for that matter. That wasn’t possible. It was a ritual that was obviously necessary for polite society to function. Despite the fact it seemed completely ineffectual—on women especially. The word was never enough; to be sorry and say sorry were two different things.

“I was sure—I was so worried.”

No effect, Dharma was still just as miserable as she’d been a moment ago, no magic word was going to change that, no vague promises I couldn’t keep. “Did you—?”

A moment of stunned silence passed.

Maybe I should’ve said I was sorry again, maybe I should’ve repeated it over and over again until she stopped talking. We were on our way to pick up my dress and shoes for the prom, which seemed fast-approaching.

I’d soon have to get my hair done, and put on lots of makeup. Pretend to be having the time of my life dancing to eighties music and drinking punch. I’d much rather be out in the dim darkness, making other people drink cool aid, a bit of an outdated reference.

“I could’ve said I was your mother,” she blurted.

“You could’ve lied to me, but instead you lied to me.” I feigned indignation. In actuality, my capacity for disdain, lies and half-truths was very little. A soul was required to feel pangs of sorrow and betrayal. Most of what made up my ‘normal’ existence was a lie, and it seemed petty by comparison. “What difference does it make?” Teenage aloofness was my staple.

“I just thought I could help you.” Her face contorted into something like a grim mask that might summon tears, but none came.

“Help me?” I asked, almost to myself. I didn’t even know I needed help.

“Guide you, give you a normal life, I thought you forgot. I tried so hard to forget, everything.” Dharma cut herself off, stuttering, making a wry almost wrenching noise, like she wanted to cry but nobody taught her how.

“Forget? Forget what?” I made my eyes wide, but I wasn’t sure what I was staring at anymore. If she told me she had had three heads, I would’ve believed her.

“He promised he’d guide us; he promised, but he, never got around to it.” My ‘aunt’ shrugged with a little ‘that’s life’ sad smile, trailing off at the end like it didn’t really matter.

“And then what?” I looked forward as we stopped to let a couple of meth heads cross the street. For a moment I thought I recognized one of them from the bus last night, but I couldn’t tell because this time, he was wearing pants.

“He was gone.” She’d said it like she was talking about the phantom of the opera or something.

“Tell me…about him. Dad,” I said as I studied the palm trees swiping past the window.

“He was—special. He was going to help us get ‘squared away,’ that’s what he said.” Her eyes got a little misty, and her face slackened, like she was reading me a bedtime story. “His father did the same for him.”

“Get squared away?” I watched the scenery fly by, the small sad houses of Santa Ana, baking. A couple of Hispanic women rolled past with double strollers with gold wheels.

“We weren’t born like this. When he was gone, and there was no one. No one to keep us on the straight path.” Dharma’s face became a confusion of worry-lines, like she was trying to unravel a ball of headphone wires with can openers for hands.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“We’re here.” She parked outside the dress shop in Santa Ana, where I’d been measured and ambushed all in the same day.

“Is that why you sicked Captain Claw on me?” I called after her as she’d hopped out. “To get me squared away?”

–

If you want to pick up the rest of this bad girl you’ll have to wait until its released or if you’re on my mailing to get an e-copy at some point in the near future.

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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 10 ‘I call him D’ (remurdered)

Hey there,

Another bit of fille- I mean a glimpse at the finished product, time, sweat and tears and lots of blood. Not my blood, but it’s the thought that counts.

Not been up to much recently, watched the latest season of American horror story as I keep telling people on facebook when I wasn’t banned and it’s pretty fun. I mean it never really sticks the landing but it always starts off fun. It’s like a toybox full of nice new toys you know one kid is going to take a dump in.

Like the last season was about a cult sort of surrounding Donald Trump but not really. It started off pretty partisan and wasn’t too heavy on politics on one side or the other, sort of making fun of them both but towards the end it’s picked a side and surprise surprise which side it is haha. I didn’t really mind that but the ending is so forced it reminded me of the ending of Law Abiding Citizen. Just one of those endings that seems really forced and doesn’t really make sense in the logic of the film world.

So yeah this super genius guy who can kill people from a prison cell is basically going to take over the city by blowing up the mayor but he can be outsmarted by this attorney who has basically just been a bumbling idiot until now. But no magically he not only finds the bomb but puts it under the super geniuses bed and he dies. Like “Ooh can’t wait til that bomb explodes and crumbles this corrupt system that’s broke, oops whats that smell?”
I hate it when they make smart characters dumb. Why is the character a genius up to this point but now he’s suddenly dumb because the script asked him to be dumb. It’s so contrived, if you set up a character to be this evil genius but can’t come up with a good way to defeat him then the natural course is to let him win. Not to just tack on a good ending where he slips on a banana peel and dies. You have to establish a flaw for him to fail or he wins, you can’t just go ‘ok now the good guy win!’
It’s cheap and tacky and it completely just feels hollow and shitty.

 

So basically the ending of Cult, oh yeah spoilers ahead haha, is the cult leader played by Evan Peters is in prison but he’s sort of indoctrinated the prison and he’s fucking the female guards and they help him escape so he can go kill the person who squealed on him which is Sarah Paulson’s character.

So he escapes and he gets on stage to kill her but the gun is empty and the ‘twist’ is that Sarah Paulson’s character had a little ‘chinwag’ with this indoctrinated guard and somehow unindoctrinated her and she gives him an empty gun so when he pulls the trigger nothing happens and then someone else shoots him. And to a normal person you’d just go ‘ok the bad guy loses cos reasons’.

But I was instantly like, literally none of that makes sense. One how did these people even meet, so this person is indoctrinated but travels god knows how far to meet someone who escaped the cult, why? The prison probably is nowhere near this person and why would the indoctrinated person even think of doing this? And if it was Paulson did she talk to every guard in the prison? And if she really unindoctrinated her why did the guard still have sex with him and help him escape after, i.e committing career suicide? It makes zero sense.
If she was really not under his power he would’ve never made it out of that prison in the first place. It just makes logical sense within the real world or it’s own world. It was just ‘Bad guy loses’. 

And the politics and message are sort of cancerous, it makes reference to that Ashley Judd speech where she read out this poem that I doubt that many people know about really. And Sarah Paulson’s character is a crazy murderer too so it’s not really ‘bad guy loses’ it’s more like ‘male bad guy loses, female bad guy wins cos reasons’.

Also lena dunham is in it playing the chick that shot andy warhol and that episode was just fucking aids tier, I almost stopped watching after that, it was just pushing too hard on the parody wall to be taken seriously. It stretched credulity to a point it was obnoxious. The story sort of fell apart after that and the ending was just small and unsatisfying and it made me mad haha. Even though I knew it was coming. It reminds me of a really good movie I watched recently called Upgrade and I wont go into it for spoilers but you get to the end and it starts to get formulaic and me I’m watching it like ‘oh here comes the generic ending’. Like you can just tell, a story is building to this one ending but you know it’s gonna cuck out and take the easy way out like Law Abiding Citizen. The super genius character is suddenly gonna just not account for an allergy to pollen or something really fucking dumb.

But no, it gave me exactly the ending that I never expected, the ending that actually makes sense and it was ten times more satisfying. That ending alone made that movie for me, but all around it’s just an awesome little movie, I recommend you watch that and skip every season of american horror story haha. I’m watching it out of curiosity, it’s just something to put on while I pump iron haha.

So, down to business, Kur is done, sort of, not really and it’s time I work on something new. And honestly I dunno, I feel like Diana and Kur are both sort of up in the air and I don’t know what to do with them just yet. I need some direction, I need to follow my instincts because this is a lot of time investment to waste on a book maybe nobody wants to read. I mean if no one like either book what’s the point in writing a sequel?

I’m starting to think I’d be better off writing more clown samurai nonsense haha. I do have something I was sort of working on a while ago and I think I might go with that and instead of writing something intended to be a series just write a one and done book like fight club (but not like fight club haha). Maybe I’m spreading myself too thin and not putting the focus where it needs to be.

So I had this idea about a super hero going through Burnout syndrome, basically a superhero who tries too hard and his powers are too strong and he ends up killing innocent people by mistake and goes to prison. And in prison he slowly begins to see the world is much too broken to be the hero he wants to be and he essentially becomes a villain. I mean he’s still the hero but the “government” becomes the villain.

I likened it to like Hancock meets 1984 meets american history X but in reverse I guess haha. Maybe old boy would be a better description but he doesn’t become evil in oldboy. It’s complicated. The reason I said that is because I want to play the politics card like ahs cult and have an evil but relate-able nazi character for fun. Like a mix of Patrick Bateman, the guy from american history X and the comedian from Watchmen. A villain who is vile but still oddly likeable, so much so you feel dirty for liking him haha. Characters like that are always fun and really make even bad media good, like Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, any wonder the second season fizzled out? Killing him off was their death nail. I heard netflix is axing all that cape shit now, good riddance, it was terrible imo.

I think I’m gonna spend some time with the notes and materials I have for Kur 2 and this superhero story which is called ‘Burnout’ now but I toyed with a few others. I wanted to call the main character burnout but of course it’s already taken haha. I was looking through the notes for it, because it started off as a comic as does a lot of the stuff I write now. But the notes I have are pretty extensive, I’m a little impressed with past me haha. I mean it’s funny looking back at my world view then comparing it til now. It’s like reading Alex Jones’s wank material haha. 

But there’s a lot of good stuff there ready to be moulded into an actual story, so I think that’s what I’m gonna do for the next couple of days, just see where my head is at, see what I’m feeling. But baring a sign from god I’m feeling the super hero story mainly because I a lot of the song titles I have for chapter titles haha. Stole most of them from the excellent american psycho soundtrack haha. So yeah, American Psycho meets hancock haha. I guess that’s a thing maybe.

Should be a lot of fun, I’m gonna take my time and play it out a little, see what I can do with it.
Oh also the starship troopers pilot screenplay is done, now I need to decide what I’m gonna do with it haha.

That was a long one but I think that’s good for today.

Also did another newsletter, first of the year, sorry about that haha. I attribute it to laziness and forgetfulness. But I haven’t really been spamming much since I’ve been getting banned so much recently.

See you…

–

We cut out a lot of walking through bland bleached white halls, not too dissimilar from the inside of a hospital. Complete with the smell of death and cleaning products. I waited in an interview room. It was sort of a bland eggshell color, and it smelled vaguely of crayons.

A square room that could’ve been an empty storage closet but for the table and chairs. There was no long two way mirror, just a camera that was no doubt watching. They’d see nothing of interest, no tell or wink or me talking to myself. I lacked guilt of any kind, incapable of feeling it in fact; and as far as I knew, I was actually innocent of any crime larger than an overdue library book.

My fantasies aside, I was a pretty solid citizen, on paper. Two—or probably thirty—minutes from now, a detective could walk in here with a video of me robbing a jewelry store, wearing the barmaid’s head as a hat.

I’d pull off surprised, then again, maybe not. I’d dwelled on the possibility the dark back seat driver might’ve been taking me around for a spin in the wee hours of the night. Slipping his driving gloves on, and sidling over into the front seat while I was away with the faeries. That seemed fanciful, even for me. Although, it would explain why I felt so rundown recently, but I could just be getting my period.

I was about to delve deeper into another dark daydream, when the seal on the door behind me was broken. I turned awkwardly to watch detective Cantwell saunter in, looking down at a bland manila folder, as if I hadn’t been waiting at least an hour at this point. He sipped a hot cup of coffee, probably one of many. Our tax dollars at work.

There was something I liked about this place. Something beautifully impersonal about everything. Men and women, in and out of uniform, shuffling about in a trance, pretending they belonged, all separated out in little cubicles and cubbies.

The smell of justice was a dank bitter scent, like burnt coffee and cigarette butts. People brought together working toward something that could never truly be but was worth their time anyway. Like a maid constantly making a bed for others to sleep in, only to have to make it again the next day. Making order from so much chaos. What a daunting task, I liked it.

The detective looked up at me like he didn’t expect me to be there, causing deep creases to form on his smooth chocolaty forehead. He then proceeded to slap the folder on the table, as if it had pictures of the Kennedy assassination from an until-now, unseen new angle.

My money was on Jackie this time around. Maybe it was the butler with the candle stick.

He took a sip of his coffee, waiting to say something, this whole thing I guess was to soften me up, let me stew, all protocol no doubt.

I could’ve said something; that was sort of the point of me being there. But, I felt it impertinent to be the first one to talk in this situation, surely that would break some sort of criminal code. At least let the cop ask a question before one spills the beans entirely.

So I sat, adjusted myself in my seat a bit and looked at him as he continued to peer down and sip his coffee. I cleared my throat quietly, readying myself.

“Do you know why you’re here?” he asked some very guilty looking coffee grounds at the bottom of his cup.

“Err…” Eloquent as always. “Something to do with the heads in the lockers?” The words tiptoed out playfully.

The heads seemed like a distant memory now, a memento from a special day I never got to keep; I didn’t even keep the ball.

Maybe I could still get it out of the trash.

Cantwell made a face at his coffee like he got all the way to the bottom only to discover the body of a fly in a set of tiny Bermuda shorts.

He looked at me with half-lidded eyes and made a sucking noise with his teeth before setting the empty cup down.

The sound of it touching down on the table echoed right through me. We had so much in common.

He readjusted himself in his seat and made a sighing noise, like he was about to open some grand grimoire of Diana’s mistakes past and present.

A catalogue of all my thought crimes recorded for all to see. Probably even had my tween fascination with Justin Bieber and Edward from Twilight in there, too. That would’ve been truly incriminating. Especially if he found my adolescent fan-fic shipping the two. My mind was wandering, trying to distract from the dark hissing noise.

A black punctured tire, whispering to me in that mock reflection of my own inner voice.

A quiet siren ripping through the dark foggy depths of the ghost town called Diana.

The detective opened the file and split his lips as he looked at me, flipping a Photostat copy of a picture over in my direction.

In it; a blurry night still from a security camera, the vague outline of a hummer pulling out into the night.

“That picture was taken from a gas station security camera of a car fleeing the scene of the latest Headsman murder.”

I tried not to fall out of my seat. What was more shocking? The picture or the fact, not even the police could decide on a definitive name for him, Headhunter, Headsman, pick one.

I gave my best teenage ‘so what’ face. Trying both, not to look completely blindsided and also trying not to open my eyes wide enough for him to see that there was nothing behind them. Too much emotion, and too little would both be mistakes. What a tight rope I walked, how I envied Manson. He’d always just made a funny face and said something vaguely intelligible.

“I—err…”

Great work Diana, you’ve got him eating out of the palm of your hand.

“Now what would be the chances you’d be the one to find those heads?” The detective sat back in his chair, laying out some figurative diorama of events with his hands on the table separating us. “And only one day later, were photographed leaving the scene of another murder in your boyfriends car. That is your boyfriend’s car, isn’t it?” The question hung in the air devoid of any inclination of doubt. He slid a few more pictures across the desk, these ones were less blurry. Different angles of the car—and even a nice shot from the front—my ghostly white face projecting through the tinted glass windshield.

–

 

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Diana in the dark Chapter 9 ‘Sugar lies’ (remurdered)

Ayyo wut up?

Ok well as usual it’s tuesday, the day after my favourite chest day so I am sitting here trying not to swallow my tongue, why do I do this to myself haha? I’m so rundown, I feel like I slept in a cement mixer haha.

Ok so what’s up, yeah recycling Diana again but you know I’m proud of this version so, I dunno. I read the only one star review of Green Sunday yesterday and laughed, some guy saying it was dumb, well yeah, that was sort of the point haha.

Talking about the stupid shit I write, I’ve been thinking of looking for like a serial magazine that might take 3 ring samurai for no money haha. All the glorious ‘exposure’ I can eat haha. You know just for fun, I like people reading my stuff even if it’s to laugh at it for free haha. But who knows it could get a cult fanbase, like I care haha. Anyway yeah I just stumbled on an ad on facebook for a podcast that’s like an audio serial so submitted to that so hopefully they think it’s funny and different and it could be heard by a few people.

Also looking into potential publishers for Cur which could hook me up with the right audience, I’m gonna be putting together a package at some point this week, I might start after I finish this blog actually.

Err, haven’t been reading the shadow a lot this week because it’s a really boring story I couldn’t give a shit about haha. I love the shadow, I just think there’s so much that is just fluff and I know if I read it all I can boil it down and pull out all the gold from this mess of tedium. I just need to stick with it.

On a positive note I got back into a series I sort took a step back from for a while, american horror story has been like a decent tv show I watched on occasion between like I dunno Dexter and that kind of stuff. It’s never really wowed me just been something I could watch when I ate or worked out.

But season six was pretty special, I thought it was gonna be like a period piece slog with some tedious plot line like hotel which was ok it was just bogged down in a lot of nonsense the other seasons also suffer from. I dunno I like it when it embraces what makes horror fun and doesn’t get bogged down in trying to tell a romance or something cheesy that just doesn’t fit.

But season six was like a cool reality show and I think it mostly worked, although the ending was a little flat but still cool. I was thinking that season seven couldn’t compete but how wrong I was. I laughed so hard I almost dropped a dumbbell on my head. It’s basically a whole season about Trump derangement syndrome.  It perfectly satirises the insanity around Trump in a way that in the first episode at least is really non-partisan and fun.

Evan Peters plays his best role yet as this crazy blue haired trump supporting cult leader I guess and he’s equal parts hilarious and scary. You can just tell he had fun with this one. Sarah Paulson plays a lesbian who made the mistake of voting for Jill Stein because she thought the Hillary nomination was in the bag and Trump being elected basically triggers the laundry list of phobias and mental problems she has and he has a kid with her wife and it doesn’t sound funny but it really is a great satire on the complete mania some people experienced just because Trump got elected.
I’m not sure what political leaning the creators of the show are but I assume liberal as hollywood and places like that usually bias left but what I found in the first episode is funny and unbiased maybe even leaning right a little, I thought I was gonna cringe at the portrayal of right wingers but not yet anyway. I just found it overall fun and funny and I’m looking forward to watching more tonight.

That’s all.

See you…

–

We were rounding the dune-like sandy hills, the grass was a desert khaki color, and we had to drive around the whole park to get to the entrance on Elinvar Drive.

Paul parked the Hummer up at the end of the street and I hopped out into the muggy mid-afternoon. He got out without saying a word and circled back around to open the trunk. “Here grab this.” Innuendos aside, He took out a small black case and handed it to me.

It was a little heavy, but I ate my Wheaties this morning. I was a little giddy, maybe it was the slight elevation. The air was a little thinner and smelled different, less like people and more like dirt.

Paul pulled out something long and thin, wrapped in a piece of chamois leather and set off up the trail at a medium paced stride. “You coming?” he yelled.

All those juices were flowing. Must’ve felt like he was straddling a camel in Baghdad with an M60 strapped to his back heading to Osama bin Laden’s pool party.

I kept pace as we hiked further and further away from the road, getting a lot quieter as we did, only my minds wanderings to keep me entertained.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked ‘Aunt’ Dharma.

“I don’t know, I just…it just seemed right.” There was something in her words that seemed practiced, as if she’d been waiting for this.

I was being shielded even now from something darker than even my imaginings, and it made my heart skip. What could it be? Dancing just outside my peripheral vision, gliding along the edge of a wine glass, ready to crack it and slip off.

“I wanted to give you a chance. A chance to be whole,” she continued.  She looked at me, her eyes welling with a cocktail of emotions I couldn’t begin to understand. She was looking into my eyes, knowing, and knowing I knew she knew.

Confirming there was nothing behind them. I was empty, and she’d known all along.

She’d hoped and prayed but her worst fear had come true. I was a monster, a shadow, a poor reflection of a human. No different from the ones we were running from.

Dharma burst into tears on the breakfast bar.

All I could do was stretch out a puppet-like hand and pat her head. “There, there.” I dropped my hand on her head like it was made of wood. The sound of an American bald eagle cawing overhead awoke me from my stuporous flashback, it was very patriotic. I couldn’t feel anything but my heart pounding and my legs chaffing, lugging the case around. There was a bit of wind coming off the coast and reaching the high-ish peaks.

The empty hilly landscape stretching out on all sides. I regretted the jean-shorts this time. The brittle dry grass slashed and scratched my legs as I trudged on.

The sun was slowly losing its grip on the sky, starting its shambolic descent into a watery grave once again. Only to rise from the dead the next day with a cock crow and a “Hey what’d I miss, no gruesome murders I hope” expression on its face.

It was warm, but the breeze and the coming night gave all the heady air needed to feel a slight buzz.

Maybe I was sharing a high.

I could feel the smile in the back of his head. Beaming like a Boy Scout heading to a magical Indian Pow Wow.

When it was quiet enough, secluded enough, far away from the road and civilization, we stopped and Paul set down the thing in the wrappings and unfolded it. “You can put the case down on that rock.” He stood the rifle up, looking it up and down.

It was a regular hunting rifle, probably one of his. Just a regular wooden hand cocked hunting rifle. I guessed he thought a tactical black semi-auto AR would’ve been too scary for me, and most likely illegal in this super liberal state.

Anything black and scary and pointy was usually banned in the utopian state of California.

I watched as he patted it fondly, cocking and shouldering it, looking down the iron sights. I set the case down on the rock and opened it. Inside were four pistols of varying caliber; no clue what they were, hi I’m a girl.

One was a revolver, I knew that much. There were two like that one out of The Matrix, and a little one that looked like the one James Bond used, but a little boxier.

“Pick one, and we’ll start.” He went over by another rock. About fifteen feet away from the spot, he put out the mat that’d previously wrapped the rifle. Now spread out like a picnic blanket.

And I forgot to make sandwiches. Oh well.

He set up a can of Diet Coke on a rock, I hastened to think where he’d found it, only fat girls drank diet coke.

I liked water, of the mineral variety, the mineral being steel from the faucet.

What about the fluoride in the water turning the ‘friggin frogs gay, Diana’?

I wasn’t that type of crazy. Sadly.

–

This is the fancy edited edition which will be made available at some point in the future but for now you can read the undedited raw version here.

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Loverman chapter ‘The big dream’

So this is me attempting to get back into a normal routine and sort of failing miserably because that routine also includes lifting heavier weights than the balls of Jehovah. So I’m trying to fix my sleep schedule and also sleeping right through every alarm I set as my body tries to heal itself.

Anyway I hope you all had a great christmas and a snappy new years, both mine kind of sucked. Christmas just felt sort of flat and I didn’t feel christmassy at all, I worked on new years so that was a boner killer,

In other news found an awesome new videogame, the mad max game is surprisingly bad ass. Also my new relationship is sort of working out in a weird way. I paired her with videogames in case she reads this just to annoy her.

I don’t want to really go into detail because I’m conflicted I should feel terrible and I sort of do, it’s like I want to be happy while also being stomped on by life in the worst ways imaginable. I’m not saying that for sympathy, I don’t give a shit, it’s just a weird feeling approaching her birthday and feeling so lost and miserable and heartbroken as I’m completely shut out while also being at the start of could be a really happy healthy relationship. One that could actually work and isn’t just setting me up for supreme heart ache down the road.

Someone less of an idiot could maybe wash his hands of the whole thing and forget and just start over but I can’t.

Yeah I kinda wanted to start the new year off light and already fucked that up but hopefully my schedule will open up a bit this month and I can finally get Diana done and start sending her out into the world to get mercilessly torn asunder. I know I’ve been kind of procrastinating and putting it off for the longest time, just like I’ve been putting going to the next weight level in my training. But hey I did that and now I feel like a tenderised piece of meat haha. 

Maybe I can make good on that other stuff too and get a new job. But what the fuck am I even going to spend the money now that she won’t let me see her?

Hmm.

See you…

–

My mother’s old Chrysler pitched and yawed and creaked to a stop with that horrible ratcheting sound of the gear box unto imminent death. Which of course Ericcson not being familiar with it didn’t know exactly the right way it like to be touched. So as not to eviscerate the already ramshackle clutch. Held together with tape and prayers.

 

Still these concerns were beyond me, my main worries were now worms nesting in my ear and being unable scratch my nose. Not being able to turn the pages of the book or change the channel on the television was of particular concern. Forever doomed to just watch whatever anyone else wanted to watch.

 

The girl’s directions weren’t too bad. Although she might have recommended we bring a machete for our trip as the road leading to the house was intensely overgrown. So much so as to almost disappear into the trees.

 

The pornographer Lukas lived in a fairly large new England country house out on the east side near the river. Just a guess really, due to the sound of running water, that being the only sound I heard, no birds chirped nor foxes howled.

 

The house itself was in utter disrepair and looked most certainly abandoned. The face of it was once a white wood, the paint rotted and chipped and discoloured. All but one of the upstairs windows were broken, most likely by bored local children. The roof was tiled in grey slate with a red brick chimney which had collapsed into the attic. The front door was green and hanging off its hinges. A white picket fence surrounded the square building and traced the outline of a truly unruly lawn. Which had swallowed a very rusty looking push mower, most certainly its first victim.

 

Undettered by this Ericcson got out of the car slamming the door of the Chrysler as if to announce himself. He paused only momentarily to absorb a most ominious atmosphere. The building exsoothed a singular loneliness and gave off an almost abstract feeling of revulsion.

 

The autumnal trees behind the house were such deep oranges they almost looked like a mat red canvas against the house. They swayed lightly in the breeze and noiseless things that must have been birds leapt out of them and into flight.

 

Ericcson opened the fence gently and approached the door meaning to knock on the great green edifice. But instead he tried the knob and it was unlocked.

 

We entered, I of course hanging at his side in my bag.

 

But I could see out of a number of holes made in the bag for that direct purpose.

 

Now, being a disembodied head you’d think not much could shock me. But upon entering the house, expecting more filth and degradation as the outside advertised. We were instead greeted with a warming glow.

 

I wondered for a moment if Ericcon and I were seeing the same thing. From the outside it seemed like an abandoned run down shack and from the inside it was a living home of some humble opulence.

 

I could hear the lapping and crackling of a warm fire and the soothing tock of a grandfather clock

 

Ericcson it would seem was entranced and I dared not to wake him as he made an odd noise as if reacting to some unheard tone in a dream.

 

He walked slowly and cautiously towards the noise of the fire into the living, decorated as if a scene in a holiday greeting card. Real logs burned in the fire and wreathes hung over it and on the mantel there were pictures of a happy family although their faces I could not make out.

 

Ericcson walked bow legged and collapsed into an easy chair in the corner allowing me to slump down next to him on the carpeted floor.

 

I didn’t even notice the other person in the room until I heard the chinking of the ice in his drink.

 

“So nice of you to pay me a visit” The man said as he tipped the glass towards Ericcson.

 

He was an odd duck, dressed almost like a hipster mister Rogers; a brown sweater over a plaid shirt. His sleeves rolled up revealing elaborate tattoos, his face too was marked with scarification and tunnels in his ears. His eyes were a disturbing unnatural blue, altered somehow with pigment.

 

“I’ve come to kill you” Ericcson said flatly as if talking in his sleep.

 

“Is that right?” The man smiled and looked into his drink. “Lydia – the girl in the store called me right after you did, this is the only address she knows so I knew you’d come here.”

 

“It’s a trap then?”

 

“Not really, more like a check-up” He motioned down with his head “How do you like your drink?”

 

Ericcson looked down at his hand and saw a whiskey glass there and he jumped as if he suddenly felt like he was falling and dropped it on the floor. The tumbler landed with a dull thud and rolled towards the fire place.

 

“Too bad, that was good stuff” He took a sip of his drink and straightened in his wingback chair. “Well enough with the niceties, I’m sure Niall didn’t impress you too much but you’ll find us a little more prepared.”

 

“You’re Lukas?”

 

“I already told you that” He said as he put his drink down with a clunk on a glass coffee table and then leaned back with his hands across his lap. His hands too were covered in obscure tattoos that looked like child’s drawings and he had odd jewellery on his thumbs. “But enough about that, we’re here for you Zane.

 

The doorbell rang.

 

“Oh that must be our guests”

 

“Guests?” Ericcson said sadly.

–

Check out the rest of the chapter right here on inkitt The big dream

 

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