 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Author |
Chapter |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
 Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 8:39 pm Post subject: Control - Chapter 6 |
 |
|
WARNING: Extreme Adult Subject Matter, Violent Themes. If under 18, please turn back NOW. You've been warned.
Chapter 1
My headlights scour the fog infested highway as my charcoal black truck winds its way through the Smoky Mountain passes in the darkest hours of the night. Cautious as I have been, driving in these conditions, the road is nevertheless slippery and has, on more than one occasion, forced me to misjudge some corners. In these tense moments, my tires slipped from the pavement unto the slimy shoulders, demanding that I slow to an almost unbearable crawl lest paramedics inevitably find my corpse lodged in a ravine.
Just a few yards ahead, a sign emerges from the mist. While its message is hardly legible through the murk, I clearly see the outline of the state of Tennessee. Finally! I think to myself. The journey has been long and I grow weary. To think anyone might’ve put so many miles on horseback in times long since past.
Beginning the journey in California, I have been travelling for three days to reach this humid region of the South. My body aches and my legs have stiffened in this seat. Thankfully, I have perhaps only a few more hours of travel yet to go – on any regular evening at least. But through these miasmic conditions, who could say? I hope to arrive at an appropriate hotel stop by morning at least.
Given the conditions this eve, I chuckle as I consider the name of my destination, a little backwater town, tucked away in the woods. They call it ‘Slaughter’. Ugh. Couldn’t they have thought of something a bit more pleasant?
Tennessee is a lush place this time of year, overridden with vegetation in these back hills. Branches of old hardwood trees bear down over the road, sagging under the loads of stringy mosses and winding ivy which hung from them like dead curtains. It isn’t helping visibility at all having these monstrous forces of nature emerge from the fog like marsh creatures lurching in attack.
My eyelids droop as I slurp down more java, the bitter trail of it burning my throat and warming my entrails. Unfortunately, it has cooled significantly since my last stop at the freeway junction. Oddly, since that stop, I have not seen a single soul on the road so far. Figures. What idiot would try to navigate through this ethereal soup? Oh yeah. Me. I’m a fool. I will not argue against that fact.
But what makes a fool of any man? A woman of course. I’m no exception to that rule. Not just any woman, though. At one time, she was THE woman. The only woman I’ve ever felt truly ‘in love’ with. Stupid me, I went and married another one, in forlorn abandon of hope that anything could or would ever be between us again. But alas, my shackles have finally been released and I am free to rush to her.
Only one problem. She doesn’t know I’m coming. Oh, I don’t plan to suddenly show up at her doorstep. That’d be… creepy. No, thankfully, I have a friend or two left from my brief time living in this dismal state. Why Adam moved to a town out in the middle of B.F.E named Slaughter I cannot guess. A job perhaps? At least ‘she’ will be just an hour or so further, well within range of a comfortable trip to visit. If she’ll allow it.
You see, about seven years ago, I lived in Tennessee, with my now – thank god – EX wife. I had convinced the bitch that we should move out here to be near to that old friend, that perfect woman. How I did that, I’ll never really know to this day. Perhaps it was my ability to play on her latent lesbian lusts. Perhaps she just wanted me to realize that the perfect woman was not so perfect after all. Perhaps she succeeded. (Bullshit!)
It’s not as if I believe that everything would be perfect in the world if I finally had this woman, Sunshine, in my life. Yeah… Sunshine. That’s really her name. Kinda fucked up if you ask me. Especially considering how much of my life I had been longing for her like a vampire denied the lively essence of the day.
No, we had our problems too. Or at least I keep thinking we must have. This way I can hold myself in denial of having missed my chance at a utopic life. Sunshine was annoying at times. Terribly self-centered. Surely, considering how arrogant and narcissistic I had been before… recently… it would have gone sour eventually. Who knows? Perhaps everything I loved about her, her impetuosity, her willpower, her fire, would have eventually become a bitter taste in my mouth, leaving me to feel cursed to be at her side for the indefinite future to come.
I tell myself this as I drive straight for her as soon as my chains have been broken. I’m a hypocrite AND a fool. But I have to make things right again. We parted on bad terms. I guess that’s what happens when threesomes go south. One bitch calls the other a whore while the other retaliates by condemning her for being such a slut as to have a child at sixteen. Meanwhile I’m standing there wanting to slap the shit out of my then-wife but knowing that, to do so, I would lose them both.
I had betrayed Sunshine. I had offered a bit too much information to an ex boyfriend that had been pining over her. I could relate to him too deeply to ignore his pleas for understanding. She’d cheated on him. My lecherous wife had informed him of this. I confirmed it. I’m a bastard, a hypocrite AND a fool.
So I’m not here with hope of getting back together with her. (bullshit!) Hell, I don’t even know if she’s moved on and has another flame now, or worse, a husband.
No, I’m here to repair the damage I caused. I don’t expect her to forgive me. But maybe I can earn back the best friend I’ve ever had. (BULLSHIT – you just loved the sex!) It’s true, she was the hottest girlfriend I’d ever been so blessed to be within. I’m a liar, a bastard, a hypocrite AND a fool.
But it was deeper than that, somehow. If it were just the amazing sex we’d had, I wouldn’t be crossing the country like a fevered dog after a fox. She made me love myself to be with her. It was as if her light filled my dark soul and made me whole. When she took it away I lost my light and I’ve been searching for my Sunshine ever since.
“Love is not a feeling. Love is a conscious decision to overlook the shortcomings of others.” My therapist’s voice echoes through my mind. My EX-therapist, thank God! Sure the bastard helped me to understand my faults over the last five years of therapy. He was also part of that ungodly torture machine the government bound me with, forced their control down my throat and through my eyeballs until they had my unquestioning obedience.
I suppose I earned it. No… I did earn it. (I was about to say…)
After leaving Tennessee, my heart and mind were twisted and corrupt. I hated my wife with the passion of one whose family has been murdered. My family, in this case, was all hope of living under the life-giving essence of my Sunshine. My actual family, my wife and my kids… they were the murderers, my tormentors, my daily reminder of my vampire-like curse.
In the hopelessness of a lost soul, I embraced drugs. I embraced corruption. I fled to my inner island of my own fantasies. Porn and Pot. Lots of both. They numbed me and I used them like a medicine to patch the black hole in my soul. But I’ve learned, over my time in therapy, that no such evils can truly repair such a longing. It only served to twist my mind to find more and more severe escapes as those bits of bubble-gum and duct tape were rent and torn and absorbed by the growing void within.
In my desperation, a mad scientist emerged to replace me. Cold, analytical. Sex was its focus of study. What WAS that man trying to do when he fondled me in my childhood? Was it possible for me to have reacted, to have felt aroused? If I had, would I have avoided having been such a tool where women were concerned, allowing them to lord over me in my ignorance of the ways of being a man? Could I help my children avoid this fate as well? Could I show them the way to a brighter future by awakening their desires earlier? Surely they wouldn’t be doomed to suffer the fate of a late bloomer as I had. If I did it when they slept, without their knowing, and nobody ever knew, who could be harmed by my experiment? (Bullshit – you sought a sexual rush, nothing more!) I didn’t see that at the time.
But guilt had been my undoing. I had admitted my faulty behavior to my wife. She tried to swallow the sin with me but found she could not. A month later I was forced from our home – she had exerted HER control. Then she asked the police to aid her in her venomous quest to destroy me. Again, as usual, in her efforts, she succeeded. (Bullshit – you brought it on yourself and she was in the right to protect her children!)
I’ve been under the thumb all my life. But never have I faced such humiliation and terror as the day I was admitted to jail. Tears had streamed all that night, and my body had quivered in horror that my cell mates would view me as weak and seek to take advantage. I was, after all, among the presence of other twisted souls. They were kind enough to leave me be to recover my arrogant front again.
Three months of introspection followed. I never resisted. I admitted everything the whole way through. I find it best to relax and let the river take me where it will when the rapids grow so rough. Afterwards, I was released on time served and sentenced to the next five years of living hell under my tormentors’ tyranny.
Nothing was hidden from them. They demanded it so and had the means to achieve their demands. Polygraphs would find out if I tried. They did make such discoveries on occasion, which led to great suffering as what little essence of joy I had would be stripped away like flaying skin from my flesh.
“My name is Randal. Sex offender. Child Molester. Capable of reoffending.” I affirmed this weekly in front of other men who affirmed the same. I reported all sins of the week. How often I masturbated. How often I fantasized. How many children I had passed in public throughout the course of everyday life. I admitted my guilty behaviors. I explored my thinking behind each like a man walking along a riverside beach pulling up every stone and analyzing all the vermin found beneath, categorizing, capturing, cataloguing, exterminating.
“What comes to mind first when I say the word ‘Control’?” my therapist once asked. I shrunk from the question, my labyrinth-like mind exploding with thoughts in a confusing display like a burst of butterflies from a rotten tree-trunk. Something to avoid, I think should have been my answer. For the first time in my life I feel I can live without it now, under my own will – provided I continue to register public record of my deviancy wherever I hang my hat. I am, and will forever be capable of being a deviant, a liar, a bastard, a hypocrite, AND a fool.
But it made me a better person, all that trial. I have control now – the most precious kind, over myself. I see how very wrong I was, how corrupted my mind had become, and the full path I took to allowing it. (Allowing it – Bullshit! You drove down that road of your own accord!) Yes. I chose this horrible route. Now I must live with it. Much like this damned fog.
I seriously doubt my Sunshine will understand. But I have to find out.
Yawning, I wonder how many more sharp corners I can take. My sides ache from the constant jarring, pushing against the centrifugal force that threatens to send me into the empty passenger seat beside me.
The path grows darker, still, and I wonder how that is possible. The mist has thickened further I determine, realizing I’m hardly capable of seeing even the looming tree limbs now.
Feeling like a stagecoach driver through the muddy roads of the Medieval England, my eyes dart around at the passing shadows in the fog in growing worry that I might be at any time beset by bandits.
I have slowed to a mere ten miles per hour, enough for a wolf pack to surround me and begin nipping at my heels if they felt so inclined. I have far too active an imagination, I remind myself. Such fantasies are my narcissism returning to haunt me, to convince me that my life bears more meaning than that of the common man. Shit – I AM a common man. Even if I AM a narcissist, a deviant, a liar, a bastard, a hypocrite AND a fool.
Nevertheless, I reach under the console between the seats to fondle at the smooth, cold steel of my pistol. It comforts me to know that there are a full ten rounds loaded in its hold. I shouldn’t have it, being a felon now. But fuck ‘em. I’m no less valid a human being to be deprived of some basic protection on such a long road trip. I’m just thankful I had a friend who could pull some favors for me before I began my journey. Feeling a sense of security renewed, I release my grip and retract my pointer finger from caressing the tantalizing trigger.
I could not have returned my hand to the wheel with better timing.
Suddenly a dark figure emerges in the mist! It’s shambling across the road, actually moving, unlike those sad dead branches overhead.
I’m travelling too fast! I’ll hit… her?... if I don’t react– I jar the wheel to the left. My truck squeals in protest across the slick pavement and time slows.
My heart pounds against the cage in my chest and my hair stands on end like I’ve been jolted by a spark from the engine. I’m sliding sideways down the road now. Surely I’ll strike this… person I think!
This CANNOT happen! I will NOT be returning to jail tonight! If I go back for any reason I’ll be put back in that hellish grip of a legal conspiracy to command my every waking thought. I’d rather die first! I will not strike a pedestrian!
I yank the wheel to the right and my vehicle spins just as I hear a light tapping against the side of the bed of the truck. DAMN IT! I hit her! I actually HIT her!
My mind is reeling. As is my truck - careening out of control as it finally skids to a halt facing back the way from which I had come, tires sinking into the mud off the side of the road.
I take a few moments to breathe and wipe my brow, burrowing my thumbs deep into my eye-sockets to massage them back from the blur as my fingers massage my temples. Did that really happen, I wonder?
Oh, God. I really hope she’s ok. Everything’s fine, I tell myself. Don’t freak out. Just look up and see if she’s… Where is she? Surely I didn’t spin so far down the way that I left her unconscious in the center of the road, shrouded by this mist? Or worse.
My heart is still beating like a nervous chipmunk, perhaps all the more rapidly now as I consider the ramifications of this action. It was a mistake, I remind myself. We all make them. (Bullshit… you should have been paying more attention! You forgot you were driving and now you will pay as justice demands.) Fuck this. I need to go see if she’s…
THUD!
A sudden thwack against my driver side window forces my eyes to bulge, my throat to clasp shut and my heart to miss a beat as I gasp for life and duck to the right. I think I may have just dribbled a little. My crotch feels a touch damp as I glance back over my shoulder to see a frantic young woman beating at my door.
Seeing she’s alive, I release a momentary sigh of relief. Her eyes are bright with terror – can’t say as I blame her. I nearly took her life this evening.
She scratches and claws at the top of the window for me to lower it faster. She can hardly speak through her panicked breaths. Her dark hair splays out everywhere around her head; twigs are crudely woven throughout the matted mess as if she has taken a long nap in the muddy undergrowth of these woods.
“Jesus H. Christ, are you OK?” I press her for an answer to my own most desperate concern – have I harmed her? Her frantic efforts to speak break down into a wretched bawling, tears streaming down to brew through the mud and - oh shit -blood that cakes onto her cheeks. All she can manage for an answer through her shuddering cries is to shake her head, her eyes remaining fixed on mine as if she would die if she broke contact.
She backs away from the door and collapses to her knees in the middle of the street, releasing her eye-contact as she allows her head to droop between her surging shoulders. She hugs herself and rocks back and forth muttering something unintelligibly through her tears.
I feel a welling terror suggesting I may have caused this reaction. I must have been going much faster than I had thought. Damned me for being a… yeah, all those things.
Lurching out of the cab of the truck, I quickly glance afore and behind to make sure I see no approaching headlights. Once the consuming darkness is confirmed, I rush to her side, crouching next to her, whispering, “I’m sorry! I’m so so so sorry! Are you hurt?”
Instinctively I reach around to lay a concerned hand on her shoulder. She thrusts her chest forward as my fingers touch her skin, arching back her spine as she lets out a spine-tingling scream that echoes through the wooded night. As I fall back on my ass from the sonic blast, startled and unnerved, an owl hoots back in reply.
“Shit, lady! I’m sorry! I won’t touch you again, k?” I say to her, at first annoyed, and then with heartfelt apology, as she returns her face to pour her emotions into her palms once more, her body quivering.
I sit there for a moment wondering how to approach this girl, studying her in some sense of eerie curiosity. Something is wrong here… a lot more than just a startling experience crossing a road.
She does appear injured. Gouges in her flesh have slashed across her back, shoulders and arms. I must’ve touched a sensitive spot, I think, as I realize precious few inches of her bodice wouldn’t be. These injuries, however, they aren’t fresh. I must’ve just bumped her, tagged her a bit. Or she may have slapped the rear of my truck in passing. She didn’t appear struck by a vehicle. No.
This girl has been tortured!
The realization crawls up the nape of my neck. Who would do such a thing to such a young woman?
How old IS she? A teen? In her twenties? I was never good at making such determinations, as my therapist had chided me for on numerous occasions.
Glancing around into the fog, I wondered if someone might be chasing her. She couldn’t be in such a condition without someone being responsible. And that responsible party would certainly not be pleased to find her missing, I theorized. Feeling a growing sense of unease at the thought, I rose and returned to the truck, reaching into the cab to grab my weapon.
Stuffing the pistol into the front of my pants and pulling out my black dress shirt to hang over the gun to conceal any betraying gleam, I stalk back, cautiously, to crouch again next to the girl, who is beginning to sniffle back some of her tears.
“I’m sorry for nearly hitting you back there.” I force the most calming voice I can, choking down any betrayal of my growing adrenaline surge. My senses are becoming keen and crisp as I listen for any sounds of possible approach. “Are you OK,” I ask again, though feeling stupid for asking, I add, “No. Of course you’re not.”
Looking up, finally, her frightened, Asian-slanted brown eyes plead with mine, illuminated in my headlights. She might be pretty underneath all the grime, I think, then chastise myself for allowing my mind to go there. (Grrrrr…) I flash an image through my mind of the day I was arrested to remind me of the consequences of such thinking.
Suddenly, she reaches out and grabs me by the shoulders. I can feel her hands tremble as they squeeze my muscles so roughly it hurts. “PLEASE! Take me with you! Away from here!” she stresses in the voice of one overcome with dread. “Please! You must!”
I’m going to run out of gas if I go back the way I came. I must be closer to this ‘Slaughter’ community than anywhere else. But is that where she seeks to escape from? If I take her with me, who will I inadvertently anger? But can I allow her to remain out here to starve? Or stab herself on a sharp branch in the middle of this wicked night? Would she die if left to fend for herself? Would her tormenter catch up to her?
I shrug her off me, not wanting to touch her again, even to reassure. “Hold on and let me try something,” I say as I reach for my cell phone. It’s been dead for miles and now is no exception. Apparently this end of Tennessee has never heard of technology. So calling for the cops is out.
I consider that perhaps she has come from somewhere nearby, in the woods here, not anywhere close to Slaughter. I’ve seen infrequent homesteads along the way, judging by the mailboxes and muddy gravel roads branching off from this obscure highway main. But then, maybe I should keep going a ways, or backtrack, to find such a driveway and see if those homeowners, assuming there are any, have a functional phone.
Or I could just take her with me to Slaughter. I ask her, “Can I take you to the next town then? Is that what you want?” But she has grown overwhelmed. In her eyes I can see her synopses short circuiting as she drifts off to gaze emptily at a distant spot over my shoulder.
Glancing back to make sure she wasn’t looking at a stalker striding through the mist, I blinded myself in my headlights but could see enough to assure myself that nobody approached.
Then a thought strikes me like a brick as I look back at her dazed features. What if I did hit her back there, and she reports it? That could at least mean a return to probation – and a return to the hell I WILL never go back to.
Worse still, her injuries and obvious torture experiences could be pinned on me – always easy to blame a sex offender! How much worse would that be? I shudder to think of dying in prison.
Doing anything horrible to her now cannot be an option, I remind myself. I have avowed to become a person my Sunshine could love – a person I can respect. It’s been a long road to get to where I am and I will not slide backwards now. But what do I do?
Last edited by Tainted Biohazard on Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:36 pm; edited 14 times in total
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
PopeAlessandrosXVIII
Arts and Poetry Mod
Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Topics: 122
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 4:43 am Post subject: I Think...... |
|
|
One word, Wow....
I really like the realism here. it's like a "Hey, these people really exist, you know?" kinda feel. I like it. This guy, he's got sooooo many issues. I get grins when he's cursing my profession. The near constant chastising of himself tells me there is still much work to do! But, it makes for a fun little punch in the face from time to time. A great little set of bites. Much luv.
DP.....I'd say wait a bit, make sure she's thuroughly in the shoke state before trying to menuver her into the truck. Then, off to the nearest house. Keep going towards town, but keep an eye open for mailboxes. I would only actualy try for phoneage in a lit house though. Don't wanna tick someone off, or frighten them, then they get a look at her and, oh boy!
A fery interesting SG, and I can't wait to read more! *Sits and waits patiently*
_________________
To Be A Knight
And my first Finished work Death Day
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 1:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thank you for your kindness PopeAl. It's my first attempt at a storygame and I hope it goes over well for others as it has for you. I put a lot of thought into my characters. This one didn't get as much out of his treatment as he should have perhaps. I find horror characters, in particular, should be presented as having great inner conflicts.
You are a therapist?  Sorry to 'bash' your profession. You must understand, he had a fairly intrusive experience with it, unlike the sort of therapy programs most attend. But it has made him a better person. His inner voice keeps him in line, as I hoped to portray.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 6:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This is REALLY good. But a mite bit disurbing if you ask me. Then again - its horror, right? So it should be. Well done on that.
It was a bit long for a first chapter imo. Nevertheless, I found it was an easy enough read.
Your character is one of the deeper ones I've seen, but is he too deep? Is it possible for us to keep all this info about him in our minds as we go from here? Perhaps we should have had some of it spread out a bit throughout the rest of the tale. But then, maybe this was the way to have it so you can focus now on other, more active plot elements.
I'm very impressed and I really wish to see what happens from here so you've definately done your job with me.
As for the DP, wouldn't the nearby homes be as likely a source from where she could be fleeing from? Taking her there might be walking right into a lion's den. I think the town would be the place to go considering all the details you've given us. A very good DP, btw, for a new IFian. Usually takes a bit to get the hang of them but you jumped right in with a toughy. Nice.
But yeah, ultimately, terribly disturbing.
_________________
      
 CHAPTER 25: Near-Light Speed (NEW CHAPTER! (12/4/2011))
Zephyrrr! And...  
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Smee
Revered IFian
Joined: 16 Oct 2004
Topics: 166
Posts: 5215
Location: UK
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 11:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
Both TB and Pope summed it up well. Wow, and very good.
Welcome to the City, Tainted. 
I found the first person inner dialogue to be very engaging. Yes it was a long chapter, but I flowed through it in no time. Somehow you conveyed an awful lot of back history without it seeming like it.
The growing litany of self-faults throughout was nicely done too. The progression from fault, to fault passed like the car journey. You felt you were getting somewhere, nearly there.
TB was also right when he said it was disturbing. Not your everyday history, nor everyday main character. Horror stories aren't usually my thing, but you have my interest piqued.
As heartless as it seems, I'm going to suggest leaving her there. It's dark, foggy, she's dazed, confused. She's highly unlikely to even see, let alone remember a licence plate number in her condition. Get in the car and keep going.
Happy Writing
_________________
The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own Satanic Herd!
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 1:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Thanks. And yes. It should be disturbing or I haven't done my job here.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
DeadManWalking
Duke of the Mostly Dead
Joined: 24 May 2006
Topics: 30
Posts: 1005
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 9:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I don't really have much to add. I agree, that was disturbing, and very polished.
As for what to do, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, he's trying to be a better person and taking her to safety is what the best person would do. On the other, it seems that, in the last paragraph, he faces temptations. And, if he feels like he can't beat the temptation, the better thing to do for his avowed goal would be to remove the temptation. So either leave her there, or drive her to the nearest semi-safe place.
EDIT: Just to add a little more in response to HalfEmptyHero: I agree that the character development was a little rushed, but since we're in storygame format I accepted that we needed this essential information to make an informed decision. It still turned out reasonably well.
_________________
When the dead walk, the living run.
Last edited by DeadManWalking on Wed May 25, 2011 9:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
HalfEmptyHero
Headmaster of the Academy
Joined: 16 Feb 2009
Topics: 33
Posts: 342
Location: Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Wed May 25, 2011 9:16 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I really, really, really despise the present tense in writing, but I'll look past that as it is simply a personal preference of mine. The only real problem I have with this is how everything came out about the narrator right away. It wasn't subtle, it was just sort of "Hey, this is me. This is my life story." Even if none of that information is important, or even if it is important, there is no reason to let the reader know all of it right now. Here is a good example
| Tainted Biohazard wrote: | | “My name is Randal. Sex offender. Child Molester. Capable of reoffending.” I affirmed this weekly in front of other men who affirmed the same. I reported all sins of the week. How often I masturbated. How often I fantasized. How many children I had passed in public throughout the course of everyday life. I admitted my guilty behaviors. I explored my thinking behind each like a man walking along a riverside beach pulling up every stone and analyzing all the vermin found beneath, categorizing, capturing, cataloguing, exterminating. |
A character's actions should reveal who he is. You pretty much told us everything there is to know about him right here. Sure, you play the whole "he's more complicated on the inside" bit, but I still think there are better ways to give this information. I understand it's need for the decision point, but still. . . .
Some of your comma usage is questionable, that's only other thing I noticed.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Phantomfan
Citizen
Joined: 01 May 2008
Topics: 7
Posts: 309
Location: Deep within the music of the night
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Thu May 26, 2011 8:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I would very much like to simply sum up what everyone has said before: This is great. You've set up an interesting character (if slightly underdeveloped, but that's easy to fix), some great questions, and a lovely horror setting. And as a fellow horror writer, I really do appreciate the disturbing qualities of.
Unfortunately, I've posted a bit too late to really find any particular problems- all the ones that bugged me (character development, commas) have been addressed. But I shall do better next time.
As far as the DP goes, I personally think you should help her. Yes, he seems impure and susceptible to temptation, but he doesn't seem the type to exactly turn down such temptation. Now whether or not he just takes her to the nearest town, or he actually makes it his duty to help her, is up for grabs. I'd say go for the latter, mainly because it hasn't really been suggested yet.
Can't wait for the next chapter!
_________________
I've been pulled back from oblivion to lurk about the City once more. Though the music of the night always beckons...
Here's some stuff I started writing a long time ago. Orb. Nexus.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Mephistopheles
Respected Citizen
Joined: 24 May 2007
Topics: 16
Posts: 612
Location: Not where I want to be.
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Fri May 27, 2011 5:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Well writ, and has been pointed out numerous times already, it did feel a bit rushed, but in a comfortable way.
Unfortunately, I do not find it at all disturbing. Thoughts and processes are unique to every individual and I feel safe in assuming that there are many people who have considered actions similar to the main characters'. The problem that I am having with this dp is that, if the character is trying to be a 'good' person, obviously we are left with very few options; take the girl to safety or leave her. Leaving her won't work as a good person would not leave an injured animal on the side of the road to be found by a sadist that wants to torture it further, so, we have no choice but to take the girl somewhere and hope that we are not accused of the harm that has befallen her. However, I will suggest checking the truck for any dents that could be associated with hitting her, and if there are none, leave her to her own devices and depart without getting mingled into her life or affairs. No one could have seen him from the fog and her state of shock should erase from her memory his own voice and image, leaving him free to continue on his main quest, attaining Sunshine.
_________________
Cause I am, whatever you say I am
If I wasn't, then why would I say I am?
I don't know, it's just the way I am.
eminem
without the threat of death,
there is no reason to live at all
marilyn manson
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 12:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
A shocking amount of replies meets me as I return. Thanks to all of you.
Hero, I'm sorry that my format displeases you. Please know that it is a special way for Horror to be given. 1st person present tense puts the reader straight into the tension in a personal way - I think it would anyways.
Also, I don't feel I've really given everything about Randal up front. There is much more to be known about him. This was a bit of a highlight summary and I think it could be good for a story game player to be able to udnerstand the character they represent as clearly as they can when making decisions for him. It is not as if I allowed him to be plain, I don't think.
I think I will poll on this soon - if I can figure this polling thing out.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Chinaren
Hallowed IFian
Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Topics: 340
Posts: 8880
Location: https://www.NeilHartleyBooks.com
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat May 28, 2011 2:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Tainted Biohazard wrote: |
I think I will poll on this soon - if I can figure this polling thing out. |
Yes, it's a bit awkward on here, you have to edit your first post. 
_________________
Neil Hartley Books.
My Amazon page.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2011 10:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sorry the holiday had me distracted.
Poll is going up. And what's the deal with those 'favorites' up there anyhow?
Oh, and I noticed Thunderbird was running the poll over two sites at once and combining the results. Rather than write two complete stories, something I think might create a quality conflict, I would like to just add the results together. Does anyone mind?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| No votes, huh? I was hoping to write the next chapter soon and no votes. Hmm.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
PopeAlessandrosXVIII
Arts and Poetry Mod
Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Topics: 122
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:15 am Post subject: |
|
|
Vooooted! Yay! And my pick is winning, yay! 
_________________
To Be A Knight
And my first Finished work Death Day
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tikanni Corazon
Honored Citizen
Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Topics: 75
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hey Tainted, and welcome to IF!
This is quite the tale you've begun here. The subject matter, both that of Randal's past, and of the current situation he's in with the girl, are very disturbing, and we look to be heading deeper into this dark direction. It's very well written, which is likely why it's such an effective piece of writing. An intriguing edition to the Creepy Cave, and one that I personally will be keeping an eye on. Very well done!
Though I'm far too late to contribute to the dp, I voted to take her to slaughter, though I was tempted to go with just leaving her there. Just because someone it striving to be a good person, doesn't mean they wouldn't get shit-scared at something like this happening to them. The girl doesn't seem quite normal, if you ask me, although that could just be me. 
Good start, and looking forward to more!
_________________
.... there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham....
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1887
 
 
  
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Amichan
Treasurer
Joined: 06 Apr 2007
Topics: 18
Posts: 480
Location: RL:Roseboro, NC./ IF: Retuning from a long journey in the land of OFF
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 3:24 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Welcome to IF and Very nicely written ..
You will find some of the better writers can make you feel like as you read the stories and chapters you can almost envision the story in front of you like a movie .. your opening chapter put me in that realm and that this a good thing i look forward to seeing more of your writings
_________________
Check out the City of IF Facebook page here
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Chapter |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:37 pm Post subject: Chapter 2 |
|
|
WARNING: Extreme Adult Subject Matter, Violent Themes. If under 18, please turn back NOW. You've been warned.
Chapter 2
Apprehension grows to anxiety. Anxiety grows to stress. Stress grows to concern. Concern grows to panic!
What WAS I going to do with this tortured waif? I could not be caught with her. Too easy to become the hapless fall guy here. Had I been anyone OTHER than a sex offender I’d not hesitate to take care of this girl. But my legal status left little room for casual mistake. The law, I find, tends to want someone to blame and doesn’t really give a shit whether that person is innocent or not, so long as someone takes the fall so the prosecutor can add another notch to his public record. Surely, I would be charged for her treatment out of nothing less than convenience.
I look around, considering where I could perhaps move her to the side of the road and leave her behind. Then the thought intrudes that I may be the only memory she maintains when she comes out of her dazed state, causing me to shiver in the chill of the mist. My teeth clatter for a moment as goose pimples bust out all over my forearms. She’s seen me. And I’m certain she could remember me now. I cannot be linked to her.
My hand moves as if it has a mind of its own, absently wandering down under my shirt at my waste, caressing the cold steel tucked into my belt beneath. I could put a bullet in her head and dump her down a ravine. Nobody would be the wiser and I could just move on. (DON’T even THINK about it! You know they can trace bullets, flash burns on the wrists, rework every crime scene and disseminate the culprit. And if you do this, you’ll actually BE guilty of wrong doing – and a wrong that goes far beyond any of your previous horseshit behaviors!) My racing heartbeat tends to confirm my fears of taking this option.
I nod in agreement with myself. Besides, I don’t want this kind of thing on my conscience. I’ve got enough of a burden to carry there as it is.
My thoughts then travel back to leaving her here and just moving on. But they are interrupted by a memory. It was my therapist’s voice addressing all of us in one of our small group therapy sessions.
The most important thing an offender can do that will help him to overcome his compulsion is develop a sense of empathy for, not only his victims, but other people in general. Selfishness has become the routine thought process for an offender. Your actions have been taken in complete disregard for the feelings your victims would have to endure as a result. This can only mean that you have all long practiced such self-absorbed thinking and have grown numb to any sense of compassion whatsoever.
When an offender comes to realize this, is taught to understand that the feelings of others matter just as much as his own, and how much pain he has caused by his actions, he is often compelled to turn around and fight his deviant compulsion.
This is why I expect you all to work, rework, start over and rework your assignments again regarding your Victim’s Point of View and Damage Caused. I will expect these to be done thoroughly and with great attention to everything your manuals teach or you will not graduate this course.
He had been right of course. I had balked at how selfish he had argued I had been given that I had the cognizance to make sure my victims never knew they had been molested. But I could understand his point, nevertheless. Showing empathy for others would be that guiding light in the days to come, the one key motivator to keep me aware of all the damage I have caused and how to avoid being such a douche bag ever again.
My hand moves off the pistol under my belt and I imagine my face must soften as I look back at her with a new take on the situation. She’s rather thin, gaunt in fact. But she has a perfect, youthful figure under her ragged clothing. (Watch it buddy! You’re verging on improper thoughts here. You still don’t know how old she is. And come on… Really? She’s been tortured for Christ’s sake!) I force myself to smile as I move in to offer a hand to help her to her feet.
She fails to react. It is as if she has fallen asleep with her eyes open. I wonder if this has been one of the side-effects of her overwhelming stress. My eyebrows squint as I wonder how I am supposed to move her. I’m going to have to be VERY gentle here.
But what if she starts screaming again? And once I’ve gotten her to her feet, where do I put her? In the front with me, or somewhere in the back? I could move around some stuff in the bed of the truck but I don’t want anyone to come around the turn and see us here – just my luck it would be a patrol car. Besides, is there enough room? No… I can’t put her in the back like a wounded dog. I need to make sure she stays alive until I get her somewhere safe at least.
I’m forced to study her more closely, in concern that I may have to touch her where she has been wounded. Her wrists looked bruised and marred. Her upper arms, slashed. But her forearms seem fully intact. I cannot help a glance at her breasts, hanging loosely without a bra beneath her thin tank top. (Am I going to have to SLAP you?)
Sighing, I lift her forearm to look underneath at her pits, thinking I may be able to lift her from there if there is no sign of torment across that bit of skin. Despite her tank top, it’s hard to tell. There is caked blood under her arms and whether that stemmed from the bleeding across her shoulders or if there were wounds beneath could not be ascertained.
Again, her supple chest curvature peaking its pearly white flesh above the sides of the tank top caught my eye briefly, but I shut them as soon as I noticed I was looking in fascination.
I’m going to have to just try this. And once I do, I’m going to have to shove her in the back of the truck to make sure she’s safe from ME. I place a firm palm underneath her armpit, gently but assertively. I needed to know if she’d react but she remains catatonic.
As I lift her to her feet, her head lolls to the side and she begins to drool, her eyes finally closing. This makes me feel a bit better to know she’s off in full-on la-la land and won’t likely be so quick to react to a brush up against her sore spots. Or any other kind of br (SHUT THE FUCK UP! This is NOT you anymore! Now carry on being a good guy and LEAVE IT AT THAT!)
I grunt as I put my shoulder under hers and wrap my arm around her supple waist. I cannot help but feel a surge of arousal at being so close to one so… (so what? Go on… so YOUNG?)
She is light as a feather and she moans in pain as I move her. It’s all too easy for my thoughts to take those vocalizations to a whole different meaning, but my little Jiminy Cricket has been right and I just stop myself from carrying on with such thoughts, enticing as they may be.
As I walk, her feet drag beneath her, listing callously across the slick pavement. I realize she has no shoes - just layers of mud that grind off across the asphalt as we go.
I reach the front of my vehicle, its rumbling idle echoing throughout the mist, plunging into the darkness behind my headlights. As I begin to round to the back, I quickly realize that I have no light to help me in shifting the contents around in the hold. And where would I put her down once I’ve made room? Damned lack of forethought!
I’m going to have to trust myself, I think. Trust all that training I’ve been through all these years. Besides, my conscience is right. What could be the pleasure in taking advantage of a girl in the throes of torment? Sure she’s helpless and that’s dangerous for me to be so near to but… (You realize you’re only looking for a way to justify it now right?) Right. I mentally shut up.
It takes some awkward effort and she shouts in my ear as I jostle her into my passenger side but she’s really let go of consciousness here. Taking a moment to congratulate myself on doing a good deed, I consider that perhaps she had enough trust to finally let go and slip into a healing state, overwhelmed by her exhaustion and agony.
Yeah. I can’t hurt this girl further. She’s been through too much. (At least you realize you’d be hurting her now, even though she may remember nothing.) True. That old excuse doesn’t sit so well in my head as it once did.
I’m about to strap her in with my seatbelt but I realize it may chafe against her wounds too painfully and tell myself I’m just going to have to drive carefully from here - as if I hadn’t already been making every effort to do so possible on this foggy eve. And that had gone so well.
I get back in the driver’s seat, stash the gun – it poked me painfully in the groin when I sat down – make a three-point turn and continue back down the road to Slaughter, thankful to put the scene of the crime behind me, knowing it could have been left far worse.
The silence is deafening as I inch my way through the clouded roadway. As she wheezes through her bruised nose, I find each pull of her breath like a scratch across my temples. I reach forward to flip on the radio but all I get is static. At least it keeps her wheezing at bay with its white noise.
Further along, I think, perhaps an AM station? I flip over to the antiquated setting and find little more than babbling across more static and whine. “Fuck it!” I finally say out loud as I flip the thing off in some irritation.
Where do I take her? I quickly rule out the homesteads I’ve seen along the way, even if I found another. I could certainly not be sure it was not from the very place I pull into from which she had fled. Even the thought of taking her down one of those desolate driveways caused my heart to step it up a notch.
So that leaves Slaughter. Or perhaps my friend’s place. Adam lives far enough outside of town, however, that I’m going to HAVE to gas up before continuing, meaning anyone in town could see me with her in my passenger’s seat. Yeah, that’d look good. It would be better if I could find somewhere IN town to deliver her anonymously. Probably too small for a local hospital, though there may be a fire department that would take her.
Certainly she should be delivered to the police, but I couldn’t do it myself. Maybe I could take her to a gas station and simply leave her there? No… she’s too vulnerable for that and that’s not taking much responsibility for her well being, now is it?
My mother always told me that if I was going to pick up trash on the street, it was now my garbage to make sure I’d thrown away properly. Not that this girl was ‘garbage’. Far from it. Her parents must be a wreck right now I think as I look over to briefly admire her once more, the thought keeping my impulses at bay.
She gulps for breath suddenly and swallows as she moans. A hand slips down between her legs and I quickly look back to the road ahead, suppressing a stiffening sensation in my groin. I meditate on another memory, one of being admitted into jail, the snapshots flashing at the front of my face, the sides, fingerprinted. It shoves the impulses back in a corner.
But all such control mechanisms are suddenly shattered as I realize the quality of her moans have progressed from something beyond pain, now graduating into tones of pleasure. I think I must be making it up in my head but as I glance back at her, I realize she’s rubbing herself under her skirt, a contorted grin twisted across her full lips.
“Jesus FUCKING Christ!” I shout as I slam on the breaks and squeal to a halt in the middle of the road, skidding slightly to the left. She falls across the cab, toppling over on top of me after a brief shift forward.
As soon as her bloodied shoulder crashes into mine, she awakes with a gasp and explodes into a horrified ear-melting scream! She pushes me, scratches at me like a wild cat striking a long vermilion streak across my cheek as she scrambles back against the door of the passenger’s side.
Shit! She just scratched me! Now she’s got my DNA under her bloody nails! SHIT!
Her back presses up against the glass of the window as her scream finally subsides, her eyes wide with the terror of a trapped cat.
Pulling her knees up to her chest and hugging her legs she sits there, quivering, eyes watering profusely down her face. All I can do is hold out my hands in a flat-palmed halting gesture repeating, “It’s ok! It’s ok,” over and over, my voice going softer and softer which seems to help to calm her down again.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asks, with an unexpected assertive tone. Her head follows her eyes; darting right, darting left. “Where the fuck am I?”
I chuckle a bit to relieve some tension, oddly thankful my own building tension had been so effectively demolished during her sudden outburst. “My name is Randal. I’m not going to hurt you, OK?”
She slowly nods, fear still clinging to her eyes as her jaw chatters.
“I’m just trying to get you some help, OK?” My hands gesture downward to usher calm.
She nods again, this time jerkily. Otherwise she now remains silently wary as she watches me like a squirrel trying to decide whether to take the nut she’s been offered by hand.
“Ok then. I know you’re hurt. I almost hit you back there on the road. Do you remember any of that?”
She shakes her head shallowly but with rapid precision.
“Ok. Like I said, I’m Randal. And I’m trying to get you somewhere where you can get some help. Please don’t try to run. You’re in a moving vehicle here, OK?” I think about it for a moment and realize I’m being a dumb ass to say such as we have come to a dead stop. “Well… it was moving and I’m hoping to be able to get it going along again, OK?”
She nods once as she clears her raspy throat. “Ok,” she finally says meekly. “Ok.” Deeply breathing off some of her nerves, she turns to put her back once again against the seat, never keeping her eyes off me.
I glance down to make sure the pistol isn’t showing somehow. That could make for a messy situation there if she took note of it and decided to arm herself. That’d be just what I need. Sudden psycho bitch going all postal on my ass.
I shift back into gear and gradually accelerate through the mist once more. We drive like this for a time, her watching me like a prairie dog watches a hawk; me trying to stay focused on the constant twists in the road I can only see taking place once I’m in the middle of them. I’m thinking about what she must be thinking, realizing she must be thinking the same about me.
“What’s your name?” I finally ask as the silence once more grows oppressive.
She croaks her answer, “Penny.” Despite her slightly Asian appearance, she certainly has that southern belle drawl to her speech. I had not noticed it so strongly until now but then, this has been the first time she’s tried to speak with a coherent mind.
“Um…” I struggle to find more material. She’s been rather abrupt in her simple answer. I had been fishing for more. “Nice to meet you Penny.”
She does not reply, but I notice her eyes start glancing towards the road now and then, perhaps a sign of growing trust. I’m momentarily thankful I don’t have anything to feel guilty about with her yet. (Yet?) So far. (So far? What’s going on in there, pal? What gears continue to crank inside that twisted head?) Ok, I get it.
I think maybe I should ask her about who did these terrible things to her body. But then, perhaps I should not come off so aggressively. Maybe she’ll freak out again if she starts thinking about that stuff right now. I still get the impression she’s a little goofy in the head. If she weren’t, I figured, she’d still be frantically begging for help as she had when we met.
“Ok, Penny, do you have any friends nearby? Any family?” I glance over at her showing some concern as I ask.
She stares at me unblinking for a moment before she shakes her head and shrugs, though the latter elicits a brief yip from her lips. “I,” Peggy holds a long pause there as I patiently wait for her to continue. “I don’t know.”
Her southern speech drawls through once more. I feel I’m getting to see who she actually is now, at least the tip of the iceberg anyhow.
“You don’t know? What, you can’t remember?”
“Huh-uh,” she confirms, her eyes now wandering around as if searching the back of her mind for some answers.
“Are you in pain now?” I ask, again dripping with what compassion I hope sounds as real as I feel.
She seems to have to think about it longer than I suspected she would before answering, “Yeah.” She reminds me a bit of Rain-Man in the way she intones. She inhales through chattering teeth.
“Are you cold?” I ask as I reach forward for the heater controls. I’m rather warm myself but perhaps she’s lost enough blood to feel the chill, and she’s not wearing as much I realize. She nods and I turn it on for her, my hand moving across to shut off the vents that pour on me to leave her the primary recipient of its warming breeze.
She still has her legs curled up to her chest, hugging them and rocking. But she’s no longer so nervous about me it seems. She closes her eyes and takes pleasure in the warmth caressing her face.
I bask in the glow of feeling like I’m a hero here, rescuing a damsel in distress. A smile comes to me, one more warm and honest than those I’ve displayed in a very long time. What is that I’m feeling? (Pride. Something I hope you’ll be able to feel more of as you continue to improve here.) Yeah… that’s such a foreign sensation.
“What…” I approach the subject tenuously, but I must know! “What happened to you, Penny?”
Then she suddenly turns to me and asks a question that flips my world on its head. She asks it so innocently, so plainly, so casually. “You wanna’ fuck?”
Again, my foot drives to the floor on the break, stopping on a dime for how slowly we were travelling. This time she shoots forward, striking her head lightly against the dash, her feet slipping off the seat to the floor.
“What the hell, man!?!” she shouts at me, not in rage but in irritated surprise.
“I… I’m sorry… YES, of course!” I say, going immediately agape at the words that tumble out of my mouth unedited by any forethought whatsoever. “I’m a guy and all. But NO!” I laugh it off, humorlessly as I shake my head. “HELL NO! Look at you!” I assert as I look her over again seeing all the mud, grime, dried blood matted across her cheeks and throughout her hair, noting her emotionally hurt expression meeting my reaction. “You’re in no position… are you drugged?” (Hmph… I didn’t even have to warn you. Well done.)
Her eyes seem to search inward again for an answer. She smiles as if she hits on a precious locked away secret and begins to giggle madly, “Yeah. I think I might be,” she devolves into a maniacal laughter clutching at her tummy.
“Yyyyyyeah,” I say as she continues on with her snorting chortles far longer than would be indicative of any remnant of sanity. I allow her to double over in stitches as I start off again down the roadway shaking my head, noting just how close I could have been to agreeing to her offer on impulse.
She laughs herself to sleep as I drive on, thankful she does eventually as I had been growing irritated by her onslaught of hideous mirth.
Hours pass, those sagging trees my only waking companions passing overhead in the night. My thoughts turn back to my Sunshine to distract me from this Penny girl as she wheezed away the evening.
-!-
The mist cleared a bit just before I groggily pass the sign that reads, “Welcome to Slaughter” carved in plain letters gouged across a rotted old wooden log off the side of the road. I’d almost missed it but it was held just above the lingering ground cover fog across pale grey stones and its uniformity had caught my eye.
I’d never been here, to Slaughter proper. A brisk, stale, still air greets me as I roll down the window to let in a breeze to shake off the drowsies. The sky has taken on the first stages of a faint light blue indicating that morning has come. Penny groans in her slumber as she shifts a bit to shrug off the new chill.
Oddly, birds seem silenced here, or perhaps they watch me pass by, too nervous to chirp until they know I represent no threat. The only sound is the rumble of my engine.
I pull around a corner and the woods suddenly withdraw to allow for the small town to emerge. A red blinking light strung across the road marks the only lit intersection here. As I pull up to the light and stop, I look around to see what I can make of the place.
I don’t see anyone moving about the town, but I do see a hazy light on behind the glass windows of a diner to the front left of me on the corner, ‘Fred’s’ by the bleached sign. There looks to be parking and entrance in the rear, away from the intersection’s clear view. My stomach growls at the thought of patronizing the joint. But then, I’ve got other pressing issues to attend to at the moment.
Opposite the diner is a dilapidated gas station. It’s going to be a few hours yet before it opens, I’m sure. But that isn’t stopping the cop car I see there from taking a post in its parking lot. I can only imagine the badged man who must sit within watching me in return. I pray he isn’t getting to close a look already.
To my right is a grocery store parking lot. The store cannot be bothered with a name apparently as the faded sign in the lot and over the doorway reads simply, ‘Groceries’. No cars in the parking lot. It must be closed I think. I see an open public phone booth. It reminds me to check my phone again. Nope… no bars here. And the public phone is in full sight of the police officer as well, assuming he’s actually inside his car.
To my left is an equally generically labeled ‘Motel’ which looks like one of those strip motels you pass along road stops all throughout the country. Simple. Effective. The likely scene of an impending crime if the movies are to be believed. The cop can see into that parking lot from his vantage point too. Would it look like I’d hired a hooker for the night? Could that be what this ‘Penny’ actually is? Who knows, I think. I could damned well use some rest.
Funny, no police station. Perhaps it’s down one of these roads. No Fire Station either. Again, I conjecture.
If I’m to head through town I’m going to have to somehow call Adam and let him know I’m on my way. And the yellow blinking light on my dash that indicates I’m about out of gas has been talking to me for the last half hour. I won’t have many more fumes to go on here.
Oh, hell, I think. What do I do now?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2011 10:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Poll Results
I've got this tortured chick here in the middle of the road. What do I do?
Take her with me to Slaughter.
IF[ 2 ] + Tome[ 1 ] = [ 3 ]
Put her in the back of the truck as we continue to think of what to do with her down the road.
IF[ 2 ] + Tome[ 0 ] = [ 2 ]
Take her with me down the next driveway along the way - but only attempt to use the phone so as not to freak out the residents.
IF[ 1 ] + Tome[ 0 ] = [ 1 ]
Leave her here and make a quick getaway!
IF[ 0 ] + Tome[ 0 ] = [ 0 ]
Drive her to the next place that seems like it might be a bit safer for her to be and leave her there.
IF[ 0 ] + Tome[ 0 ] = [ 0 ]
Make it our mission to personally see that she is well taken care of - aid her in recovery.
IF[ 1 ] + Tome[ 1 ] = [ 2 ]
Check to make sure we really didn't hit her, inadvertently leaving behind some evidence that might trace us to having interacted with her before leaving her here.
IF[ 0 ] + Tome[ 0 ] = [ 0 ]
Put a bullet in her head and dump her off in the forest. Then proceed on. (As was suggested by a reader off-site.)
IF[ 1 ] + Tome[ 1 ] = [ 2 ]
Total Votes : IF[ 7 ] + Tome[ 3 ] = [ 10 ]
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tikanni Corazon
Honored Citizen
Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Topics: 75
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:12 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hey Tainted!
Despite the dark nature of the underlying story in this SG, I'm really getting into this tale. It's incredibly well written, and the confusion of the lead character, as to what he wants and doesn't want, what he should and shouldn't do/think, is brillaintly done. I think the story of his past could easily overpower the rest of the story if not done right, but you seem to have blended both aspects of the story together very well.
For the dp... I really can't help thinking that he should just go over to the cop and tell him what happened. If the guy gets suspicious, Randal is going to come off all the worse for it, because he will have tried to hide the fact that she's hurt, drugged, insane etc, and the cop will be curious as to why. But, from what I've read already, it's obvious that our man is suffering from some kind of paranoia, and likely wouldn't do the smart thing here. I say he makes for the motel, gets himself a room, and takes the girl inside. Then he can go get some gas, then head over to the diner for a coffee. He's completely knackered, so if he can make himself wake up a little, he might come to the smart conclusion.
Great second chapter, Tainted! I look forward to more!
_________________
.... there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham....
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1887
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
PopeAlessandrosXVIII
Arts and Poetry Mod
Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Topics: 122
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 1:48 am Post subject: I Think..... |
|
|
Well well well, fun stuffs here.....
First off, good chapter, I like the visuals and the in depth feeling so may SGs lack I feel. The one person, two way argumants are getting to my in a.....giggle induceing way. I belive it is a wonderful way to depict the way most humans interact with themsleves, just in a mroe vehement and vicious manner than most. The level of internal conflict is depictied well in this way, as well as the man's real will to become a better person. And the way the man reffered to his rational mind as his "Jimmeny Criket" was truly charming.
The girl...is a real peice of work. I feel that she may have a full mix of mental issues. Wether brought on by the torture she's suffered, or having been born with the diminished copasity she seems to be diplaying is yet to be reveailed. I personaly think it's a compelation of both. I see a mentaly disabled girl, who has learned one way of living, but her own instinctual human bases are driving her to rebel against what she's been told is just the way of things. That's my impression, but I may be way off. The pleasuring herself while semi concius was a nice touch, as well as the "Sex now?" outbust was priceless!
As for the DP......I'ma go with....make the call you need to make, and if the officer comes over, simply explain what happend. If he doesn't, try and track down the actual police station. If we are truly going fer good guy here, I'd be trying to stay by the law best we can....The empty streets are worrysome.....I have the feeling things may be even more messed up here than they appear. That's why I suggest the station rather than the officer. So, phone call, the police station fer me!
I'm really enjoying this Taint-kun! Keep'em commin'!
_________________
To Be A Knight
And my first Finished work Death Day
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:54 am Post subject: |
|
|
I'll start off with my only real niggle: | Quote: | | I pray he isn’t getting too close a look already. |
There's also a couple sentances in there where I had to read them through a couple times to get what you were saying and I think some of the comma comments before may have led you to omit some that would've helped at least. Though, perhaps just a simpler sentance structure could've been achieved in a few spots.
Now, those feedback comments aside, I felt that what I read here was quite good. I get a sense of 'reality' from it all and I'm hoping we don't go too far into any kind of 'fantasy' or 'sci-fi' realms with this one. That might be dissapointing considering so far its been interesting because of its RL feel being so vividly depicted. That's rare 'round these parts.
Gotta agree with much of what's been said before as well.
Anyhow, the DP... hmm... What if the phone booth doesn't work either? Something tells me it won't - I dunno, maybe just the fact that this is a horror and isolation is the name of the game.
He's got to find an excuse to wait for the gas station. He's tired and hungry. Most likely the girl is hungry as well. But she's also exhausted, obviously. So, since there's few places out of sight of the police, I suggest we park at the diner, where the cop's eyes don't fall, let her sleep it off in the truck (put a blanket or something over her) and head in for a meal (order extra so she can get some food when she wakes.) Then we can address the need for gas if we can get breakfast to last long enough for the station to open. And hopefully, said copper will have gone on his way by then.
_________________
CHAPTER 25: Near-Light Speed (NEW CHAPTER! (12/4/2011))
Zephyrrr! And...
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Amichan
Treasurer
Joined: 06 Apr 2007
Topics: 18
Posts: 480
Location: RL:Roseboro, NC./ IF: Retuning from a long journey in the land of OFF
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2011 8:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
Very nicely written but sadly that last chapter was tough for me to read as it touched on some personal experiances i can really feel for Randal with the situation he was faced with .. it may be difficuklt for me to read more but i will sure try to
_________________
Check out the City of IF Facebook page here
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I would say I apologize for having disturbed you, Kang, but that is half the point of the tale. Still, I must wonder what portion of my sordid story has infested you with discomfort?
I appreciate your attempts to read nevertheless.
Thank you for your feedback, TB. I shall take a look at what you mentioned.
Tika, Pope, I'm glad you're enjoying the story. I appreciate your comments. All good suggestions.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Phantomfan
Citizen
Joined: 01 May 2008
Topics: 7
Posts: 309
Location: Deep within the music of the night
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 10:57 am Post subject: |
|
|
I would have replied to this days ago, had I not totally missed the fact that I need to plug my birthday into my profile in order to read "adult content."
That said, nice chapter! You've really managed to create an engrossing story here. I really do like what you're doing with Randal, with his bursts of self control despite all the temptation surrounding him. His reaction to her, erm, dream, had me laughing for a good minute or so. 
As for the DP, I think he should definitely call this Adam guy and let him know what's been going on, maybe even ask for a ride as the lack of gas seems to be a bit of a problem. With that out of the way, he should somehow smuggle both himself and the girl into a motel room for a good rest as they wait for help (if Adam chooses to give it).
Fabulous job, Tainted!
_________________
I've been pulled back from oblivion to lurk about the City once more. Though the music of the night always beckons...
Here's some stuff I started writing a long time ago. Orb. Nexus.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 9:23 am Post subject: |
|
|
I appreciate your commentary Phantomfan. Glad to see folks enjoying this tale.
Now Polling chapter 2. (A bit later than I meant to but I may leave it open a bit longer too.)
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
PopeAlessandrosXVIII
Arts and Poetry Mod
Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Topics: 122
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 8:53 am Post subject: Polling |
|
|
Voooooted! But, it would seem, all I managed to do it tie it, oh nO!!!!! Need more votes!
_________________
To Be A Knight
And my first Finished work Death Day
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Voted for the diner as its the only place he can park without the policeman watching us. We can always get rest later and maybe they have a phone there where we can call Adam without making our presence all too obvious to the cop.
_________________
CHAPTER 25: Near-Light Speed (NEW CHAPTER! (12/4/2011))
Zephyrrr! And...
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Was hoping for another couple votes but will write a new chapter either later tonight or tomorrow either way.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Chapter |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:20 pm Post subject: Control - Chapter 3 |
|
|
Chapter 3
My truck idles in the hazy morning light as I pause at this crossing. Here, road A jabs through road B forming the throbbing red heart of the Podunk Tennessee town called Slaughter. A lone crimson light pulses at me, strung up across the middle of the intersection.
As I glance over at the terrorized passenger, glad to see she’s still comfortably deep in sleep, I consider my options. Getting some food sounds nice. My stomach certainly agrees as it growls at me from the darkness within.
I yawn and stretch and settle back into my seat.
A flash of arousing fantasy forces me to realize another hunger has begun to invade my senses. The girl’s offer has apparently been playing around in my subconscious, toying about on a playground in the shadows of my mind and has become a compelling consideration. That Motel is looking very appealing, and not just for the potential of sleeping off my road weariness.
As soon as I recognize my lecherous musings have been spreading their infestations under every unturned stone in my mind as they prepare for a full on psychological invasion at a critical moment, the falling angel within throws up a line to the cliff overhead. As mental grappling hook latches on to a stable anchor hold, a voice from my recent past, one that often speaks to me, echoes out a hollow reminder,
”When in doubt, always turn to your support group. You need people who understand you and your situation and who you can rely on and trust in your life. We all do, sex offender or not. It is our friends and loved ones that keep us on the proper course and help us to veer away from basic mistakes we can make, slip-ups that can slide us all the way back into an offense.
For sex-offenders, unfortunately, often one of the reasons you’ve ended up here is due to your tendency towards self-isolation. Commonly, whether they realize it or not, offenders isolate themselves so as to avoid the scrutiny of others.
In this solitude, your unchecked mind can weave a web of thinking errors designed to convince you that what you wish to do is just fine, even perhaps right to do. Staying away from the feedback of others is how your mind avoids having these thinking errors unraveled by outside input.
So you may have convinced yourself that you were above, or below, or whatever excuses you came up with to avoid getting close to others and their potential scrutiny.
It is for this reason that we require you to have at least ten people sign on as support group personnel before you may graduate. Those of you who are not so close to at least ten people that you have been able to trust and fully disclose yourself to and share your warning signs and red flags with need to get out and start socializing more. These connections are mandatory to your success in treatment.
So, if your resolve wavers or if confusion besets you, do not hesitate to immediately contact one of those who’ve signed your support contract. Remember, you will have done a lot of work to write out and share with them the things they need to know about your ‘offense cycle’ and what to do to help you interrupt it. Your mind may try to play tricks on you but if you stay under the scrutiny of a third party, you cannot be led astray by your compulsion.”
I AM perhaps rationalizing keeping this vulnerable girl with me by arguing that the police will immediately blame me for her condition. They may, in fact, be all the more likely to level such blame at me if I don’t deliver her immediately to them.
No, they’d tag me as the perp for sure… but perhaps… I cannot tell which would be the more ‘safe’ way to proceed here.
Ok, I tell myself, so if I just go use the phone booth and the cop across the street comes to say hello in the process, all the better. In the meantime, placing the call could be invaluable.
I really need to get Adam’s advice. He WAS a police officer himself, and being part of my support group, surely his advice would be critical at the moment.
Should I tell him everything she’s said… explain what she blurted out and offered? YES – that’s what being self-divulging is all about! NO - if we do that, then we may lose our chance to take her up on her offer… (You’re wanting to leave that as an available option huh? Need I point out anything more?)
No… you’re right Mr. Cricket. It would be best to close off all opportunity before I end up taking advantage of the situation and getting in an even deeper possible mess. I’m sure a semen sample would be just what detectives would need to get a unanimous jury against me.
I flip on my indicator and round my way into the open parking lot situated under the faded wood sign that reads “Groceries”. A phone booth that must’ve been installed in the 70’s, Plexiglas paneling showing bullet holes and deep scratches in the sides, forces me to shudder upon inspection. Nevertheless, necessity drives me so I park and leave the truck idling behind me as I stride forth rattling change in my pocket.
I cast glances across the road at the police car, but it seems to stay motionless. The windshield is wet and reflective in the morning light, displaying images of the billowing clouds drifting overhead. The side windows are too tinted and I see no motion within to allow me to determine if the shapes I can barely make out inside are just seats or silhouettes of officers.
The cracked phone, faded and chipped, is cold and clammy as I hold it up to my ear. It feels like I’m being licked by an icy toad. The booth doesn’t smell any better than I figure such a creature would either. Subtle fragrances of mold, urine and feces blend in an unwelcoming recipe. To make matters worse, I get no dial tone.
My frustrated flicking on the trigger of the phone box grows faster with my building irritation. Is there NO way to place a phone call out of this damned town?
I’m thankful Adam has a landline connection at his home at all. Apparently, the public services here have forgotten to fulfill its citizens of this basic need. And why the hell would there be not one phone tower that could at least pick me up for a roaming call? I stomp back to the truck muttering angry words under my breath about backwoods Tennessee hicks being decades behind the times.
I was also hoping there may have been a phone book or a map in the booth, but what paper had been there had become a block of black and grey mulch – useless and disgraceful. What had this town done to its phone company operator? How long has HE been missing, I wondered? Probably just moved away in disgust, or gave up on updating services in this part of his route. Why bother here?
I step back in the truck, opening it as silently as possible and still it screeches out a grinding squawk that echoes through the parking lot of this ‘grocery’ store.
A movement catches the corner of my eye and I look back up at a pair of windows situated above the diner. I would swear a curtain there still sways gently but I cannot be sure. Certainly I cannot see through the dull window any farther than the flat green fabric that hangs there behind it.
I sit there wondering again what to do now. Surely there must be a police ‘station’ somewhere around here that I can just drop her off incognito and be on my way? Maybe I won’t even have to approach the police to ask where that may be if I get a little adventurous and explore around a bit. Surely down one of these side roads there could be a station, or a fire department? That cop car has to have come from somewhere, doesn’t it?
So I pull out and head down the road to the right. God’s instructions for living a good life – Turn right and go straight.
I pass a dilapidated strip mall on the left that I’m quite certain hasn’t seen any real business in years, just after the service station. The Grocery parking lot ends with a small brick building that has a dark, iron barred window, painted with the words ‘Videeo Rentles’, each letter half scraped out over the time since it was established.
Beyond, the trees reclaim much of the land behind barbed wire fencing drawing out property ownership lines. The road immediately begins to incline into the hills and before a quarter mile, it abruptly becomes a muddy dirt road clinging to a hillside just at the edge of sight of the town below. I seriously doubt I’ll be finding a police department this way.
I turn around and take further note of what I’ve passed to get this far. I see a couple driveways and a few visible homesteads peeking out from the trees. The first of which was an unbelievably broken down and mold covered single-wide trailer with a mangy looking Doberman hanging out on a rickety wooden deck. I couldn’t tell if he were chained to the rail there or not but surely, even if he was, the rail would’ve been rotten enough that the weakest Terrier could’ve torn free if halfway motivated to.
The other homestead looked oddly out of place just at the edge of town. It was a rather standard suburbian style single level home, brick and mortar, painted yellow and fairly well kept. Perhaps this was the town’s elite, I figured wryly. A nicely polished white truck with a Confederate symbol for a license plate (where was the ACTUAL license plate, I wondered) was parked in front of the white crosshatch style garage door in the gravel driveway. Though the lawn grass was roughly mowed, it was beginning to form a weave up through the wheels of a tricycle in the center of the yard.
Confederates. Idiots. Synonymous, I think to myself. The last time I lived in this state I had a co-worker approach me to explain how, “a lot of folks around these parts still take the civil war damned seriously,” and how they, ”don’t like them black folk, don’t like ‘em much ‘t all.”
The stereotype had struck me over the skull like a brick… it was like meeting a completely irrational character that could only exist in a movie. The realization that these whack jobs were real had been all too much to bear. Kinda like the moment I met my first sex offender. Funny that.
My tires cross back onto the paved road and begin sloughing off mud.
As I approach mid-town once more my heart leaps into my throat. I see a wide set yellow truck stopped at the crossroads, lurching and chugging as it idles there in an extended delay, its occupants obviously watching me. I’ve attracted some attention and I glance over at my passenger as I think of how unready for such attention I may really be.
As soon as I look back up to stare at those staring at me from the distance of the crossing, they peel out their four rear tires, lurching down the road towards me. I’m thinking they are about to play chicken with me as they roar forward but just before they reach me, they slow and act fairly courteous, moving to the right side of the road rather than splitting it down the center as they had up to now.
I cannot clearly see the bulky driver through the sheen on the windshield as he revs his engine to a roar as he passes me but I can certainly see the wiry teen-built kid in ratty clothes hanging on to the roll bar as he stands in the bed of the truck. He looks at me with a goofy grin filled with out of place teeth and I gasp as I realize he’s missing an eye and has not the decency to cover the scar with a patch.
Even more chilling is the realization that I just made momentary eye contact with his one good eyeball. I could not read his expression. It was foreign in mentality, amused, perhaps offended - yet somehow innocent and mirthful at the same time. It had been challenging as well, menacing, like a cat who’s spied a mouse. He reminded me of one of those inane guys who hunt gators in a swamp somewhere.
Most disturbingly, I was quite sure I had seen a rifle or shotgun in his right hand. Could’ve been a walking stick, I supposed.
I swallow hard and press on, hoping they just leave me alone. They’re probably just out to hunt from the back of their truck. The bumpkins I knew from Idaho were all too likely to go out to bag a deer that way. Probably no different here, I think reassuringly. I cannot overlook, however, that this new truck also bears a Confederate license plate.
The red lights on its back end flare, indicating the driver has applied some pressure to the breaks. It seems to slow and stop just after the road goes to mud.
Thankfully, I have reached the gas station once more and I make an immediate executive decision to pull in and just hand this girl over to the cop, whatever fallout may come of it. I just want desperately to get out of this town. Now.
As I pull up next to the police car, I kick down the parking brake and step out. She snores behind me as I creak the door gently shut, listening carefully to the gurgling engine I hear a few blocks up the road.
He seems to have just stopped up there. What must he be doing, I wonder?
But more pressing, I realize, is the fact that this cop’s door is right before me now. I tap at the tinted window, still unable to make out much within. I wait.
In the distance, the engine roars and dies back down to a growl. The crunch of gravel under heavy tires suggests the driver may have turned around and be now idling the vehicle in an approach towards me.
I tap against the window again. But it is growing painfully clear that the officer who owns this car is nowhere within. On my last tap, I let my fingers fall limply down the window, squeaking lazily down until they rub absently across the rim of the window frame.
I stand erect and perk up my ears, looking back towards the gradually encroaching truck, which nears like a Lion stalking through the tall grass of the plain. Then, suddenly, I take notice that my fingertips not only feel moist from the morning dew, but have encountered something… slimy.
The one-eyed hillbilly and his mysterious chauffer will soon be around the strip mall building and I’ll be staring them down. But curiosity delays my return to my vehicle. I hold my fingers up to the light in front of my eyes and they look to be smeared in dark red oil. My thumb smears the liquid around on my fingertips a bit, testing the viscosity of the fluid. Glancing down, I see a rim of the substance pools in subtle quantity at the base of the police window. Could it be?
No fucking way, I think to myself. It’s probably just some kind of transmission fluid or something. Maybe this car is here for repairs and someone was careless. Growing increasingly uneasy about the approaching locals I turn and hop back in my truck.
I step on the gas, convinced there is no officer here. My truck lurches a few feet then abruptly sputters out!
My God, I gasp in fear! Has the engine seized?!? A quick glance at the dash lights indicates otherwise… I’ve simply run out of gas.
DAMNIT! I scream to myself inside my head as I strike the steering wheel with the flat of both hands.
The girl, Penny, stirs awake. Her eyelids creak open. She looks at me and smiles as if she’s known me her whole life and asks, “Who are you?” My mouth drops open like a guppy and she adds, “You’re kinda cute, Mister.” Yep, I think. That’s Penny for you.
A lump grows over my Adam’s apple as in my rearview mirror I see the yellow truck pull up behind me and park, blocking me in from any kind of reverse movement, as if I could feed my thirsty engine at the moment anyhow.
The driver behind me reaches forward and flips on floodlights attached to the roll bar in the back. They are completely unnecessary given that the sun can now be blindingly seen peeking over the hills behind him anyhow.
Striking out for any thoughts to calm myself, I’m about to have myself convinced that maybe these are just the gas station owners come to be helpful when suddenly Penny snaps alert, bolts upright, looks back in the side mirror and starts quivering in terror. The poor girl is unable to speak as her lips part in a desperate effort to say something but only serves to allow her frightened lungs to gasp for shallow gulps of air. She pushes herself back against me and whimpers in such a manner to cause the hair on my back to stand on end.
And now she’s just smeared dried blood into the front of my clothing. Looks just like dirt until put to a microscope, I think.
She must know these guys, I think. And what she knows cannot be good.
Shit! This could be very very bad. So what do I do now?
Panic begins to cloud my thinking as, in my driver’s side mirror, I see the scrawny, one-eyeless Confederate leap out of the back of the truck and start walking up towards me between the police car and my door.
Uh-oh.
_________________
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I've reached Slaughter. Now what?
Take her to the motel to get her cleaned up, and possibly dirtied again.
IF: [ 0 ], Tome: [ 1 ] = [ 1 ]
Take her to the diner so we can both get some food.
IF: [ 0 ], Tome: [ 0 ] = [ 0 ]
Go present her, along with the full story, to the police officer, presuming he's in his car.
IF: [ 1 ], Tome: [ 0 ] = [ 1 ]
Call Adam and try to find the police station to drop her off.
IF: [ 1 ], Tome: [ 1 ] = [ 2 ]
Go to the diner for food but leave her in the truck sleeping under a blanket.
IF: [ 1 ], Tome: [ 0 ] = [ 1 ]
Call Adam then try to smuggle her into the motel room while we wait to either get gas or a ride.
IF: [ 0 ], Tome: [ 0 ] = [ 0 ]
_________________
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tikanni Corazon
Honored Citizen
Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Topics: 75
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Christ, this story is really quite tense! From beginning to end, this chapter just kept building and building in tension for me, and your descriptions are so vivid that one can hardly not picture exactly what this creepy town, along with its unnerving residents, look like, and you find yourself practically feeling like you yourself are Randal, and that these people are coming for you. Really very creepy stuff, and very well written! Love the way the two stories, the present one, and the one from Randals past aren't at all jarring to each other too. Good job Tainted!
The descriptons of the one-eyed kid, and of the 'blood' on the cop car were especially effective, and have stayed on in my mind now that I've finished reading, particularly the latter actually. I don't know why, but I found myself picturing that moment so vividly, and it left quite an impact, and I think was one of the most tension inducing moments of the chapter. One can really see this building into one disturbing tale!
DP...It's a tough one. As I said, as I was putting myself in Randal's shoes throughout, my immediate reaction was just blind panic. He doesn't want to do anything to antagonise them, just in case they choose to leave him be (unlikely, but there's a chance). Penny is obviously scared out of her wits, so if she can be shoved in the back of the truck, and out of sight, a bit quick, I think Randal should just try and act all casual when these people approach him, but keep a hand close to his pistol, just in case.
Really fantastically written chappie Tainted! Keep up the good work!
_________________
.... there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham....
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1887
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Whisperer
Resident
Joined: 09 May 2007
Topics: 1
Posts: 41
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2011 11:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| OMG....why didn't you just put a bullet through her head and dump her...it would have made your life so much easier.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
PopeAlessandrosXVIII
Arts and Poetry Mod
Joined: 10 Oct 2010
Topics: 122
Posts: 1858
Location: Surrounded by many beautiful naked men
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 3:19 am Post subject: I Think....... |
|
|
Another brilliant chappy Taint-kun! Really draws the reader in....kinda makes my skin crawllll Congratz!
I noticed one spelling mistake, but I can't rememebr where.....I think it wasn near the end. Other then that, all's good!
The style is deep, intregueing. Makes your heart race, and the cop car incident is giving me some real panicness....
DP....Push the girl on to the floor, tuck the pistol into the back of your pants, and hop out with a "Hey guys! Think you can give me a tow t'the gas station? *Forgive me for this one* Nigger at the last one musta shorted me on gas" Sorry for the slur, but I think it'd win some brownie points with the morons!
_________________
To Be A Knight
And my first Finished work Death Day
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 8:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thank you to those who decided to keep reading. I have opened a poll. Let your opinions be heard.
_________________
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Chapter |
Tainted Biohazard
Resident
Joined: 20 May 2011
Topics: 1
Posts: 53
Location: The Absu
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 3:15 pm Post subject: Control - Chapter 4 |
|
|
Chapter 4
“Stop freaking out and GET THE FUCK DOWN!” I hiss at my beaten female passenger. She looks at me with quivering tears in her almond eyes, her eyebrows pleading for security. “Get down there!” I motion to the floor.
She sits for a moment looking at me like a brainless cow wondering what words are tumbling from my lips. But my gestures seem to finally get through to her and she slowly nods, backing down into a fetal crouch on the floor. I throw a blanket over her as I send out a fervent prayer that she has the wherewithal to stay fucking still.
My heart is racing, wondering if she’s been seen or heard already. Slipping my hand under the console between the seats, I firmly grip the pistol, bracing for the worst. My eyes dart to my driver’s side mirror.
He approaches and I gasp as I realize my fears are confirmed - in his hand is indeed a shotgun. I’m so focused on that gawky teen and his openly hollow eye-socket that I completely forget to watch the other rearview mirror.
Apparently, the wider set hillbilly must have snuck out of his passenger side door and has slipped up behind me as my gaze was affixed on his inbred partner.
“Yer not from around here,” a deep rumbling voice fires through my chest like a cannonball from behind me, “Are ya?” My small truck leans a bit against the weight he applies to the rim of the windowsill as he leans into the cab.
I pry my eyes away from the ginger teen who has begun to giggle like Goofy, his shoulders surging as he cautiously approaches me. Looking back at the man at my passenger window, my eyes pass over Penny’s lump on the floor. I exhale a sigh of relief as I note that the lump betrays little more than a hardly perceptible trembling.
The man at my door is surprisingly handsome. He’s large but not fat, solidly built, like a lumberjack perhaps. He’s got a neatly groomed, auburn-tinted, brown beard and a wide honest grin. His hair is surprisingly trimmed and his wide shoulders are matched by a strong wide jaw. But in his brown eyes there lurks something else, something deeper, something unwelcoming, something hostile, like the look of a hyena on the prowl.
He’s chewing on a wheat stalk. Really? I think. Could he get any more cliché? Then I notice his overalls. Yep… guess he can!
“I… Hi,” I stammer out an answer. I’m so damned nervous I can hardly exhale. Just stop glancing at her, I remind myself. If I keep looking her way, I’m only going to give her away. “No. I’m from out of state. But I may be moving here, near here anyhow. We might be neighbors soon.”
He just stays there leaning against the truck window, chewing on that wheat stalk. I hear a retarded giggle from behind me, “Uh-huh, huh-huh, huh-huh.” I know who it is and I really don’t want to get a look at him from this close so I just allow the hackles on my nape to rise and attempt to psychically track him with an imagined intuitive sixth sense as I keep my eyes trained on the lumberjack.
“Movin’ inta’ town huh?” His voice is soothing and confidence building. It sounds, on one hand, genuinely friendly and warm, welcoming and gentle. But on the other hand, there seems to be this undercurrent of hostility, xenophobia, cruelty. I could just be imagining it I suppose.
“I have a friend on the outskirts here. You might know him I guess, Adam Spurling? Used to be a police officer in the Nashville area for a while and retired out to this area.”
He seems to be considering what I’m saying but it apparently doesn’t mean much to him. My attempt to guide the conversation proves completely futile. “Mah name’s James Meek,” he smiles like a grinning walrus. “That there’s Billy. He’s a younger cousin but he’s a Meek all tha’ same. But just between you and me, I don’t like lookin’ at his ugly ass neither!” His chuckle at his own tension-diffusing joke is genuine but baited.
“Um. Nice to meet you. I’m Randal Morris. And,” I sigh, “I’m an idiot. It seems I’ve run out of gas. Being locals, do you happen to know when the station attendant will be in so I can fill the tank?”
“You think we’re locals, huh?” James chuckles and I hear a maniacal laughter behind me that makes my skin crawl. I try to smile and nod. My knuckles are surely going white as I squeeze down on the handle of my gun under the cover of the middle console. I almost glance over my shoulder but I warn myself that if I do, what I see there might irrationally compel me to pull my weapon and start firing in terror.
That could have some consequences.
James wheezes, backs up and slaps his knee. Though he seems to be honestly finding this all quite funny, I can tell his eyes are darting around the cab of my truck, sizing up the situation. After a moment, the laughter dies out and the mirth suddenly vanishes from James’s face as he snaps to a serious expression.
“But no, in all honesty,” he says as he leans back in towards the cab, his head crossing the window sill, “we ARE locals here. Some would say we Meeks ARE the town of Slaughter. Hardly no one lives ‘round these parts save us.”
My fake smile had pretty much frozen to my teeth and I nod, nervously laughing off the ‘joke’. “Ok, soooo, about that gas then?”
“Yeah, I figger I can rustle ol’ Burt outta bed so’s you can gas up an’ be on yer way. But I got a question fer ya first, Randy,” he says as I cringe. I’ve always hated the shortened version of my name thanks to the British slang overlap. I’d ended up with some UK porn mags when I was a teen and had been shocked to see how differently they express their sexualities - all the more disturbed to realize what my ‘name’ would actually mean to them. I determined then that I’d never use the shortened version to refer to myself again. Perhaps it was just too… I don’t know… accurate – most of the time anyhow.
But not right now. “What’s that Jimmy?,” I replied, squeezing hard at the exterior of the trigger guard. His eyebrows arched in surprise at, presumably, my defiant tone.
“We seem to have lost our sister around these parts,” he says. I swallow as my testicles disappear into my guts. “She ran off in the middle of the night, as she often does. She’s got this problem with her head, ya see,” he twirled a thick forefinger around his ear and swiveled his eyes around in their sockets as he lolled his tongue out to the side. “Beats the living crap out of herself, fergets she’s done it and screams bloody murder about how she’s been some kind of victim. Whenever she thinks she’s suffered some kind of attack, which has ALWAYS been an episode of her own doing, she runs off into the wilderness to escape her abuser. Kinda funny though cuz she can’t outrun herself if ya know what I mean.”
“I, uh…” I’m not sure what to say right now. James had just handed me a surprisingly rational answer to what Penny’s ‘problems’ might be that might not be so nefarious as I had presumed. But then again, she has that Asian look which neither of these boys seemed to reflect at all. Nevertheless, it could be from one parent that either of these guys didn’t share. Come to think of it, neither of them seems to really look at all like the other either. Do I really want to question the branches of THIS family tree?
The blanket on the floor quivers and whimpers, answering James for me. I see him glance down at the blanketed bundle, flash a brief smile of understanding recognition and then look back up at me with a crooked grin beneath his beard. “She always tries to catch a ride from highway travellers so it’s usually not too hard to get an idea of where to find her. Billy an’ I’ve been out lookin’ for her all mornin’. She goes by the name, ‘Penny’. You wouldn’t happen to’ve seen her wouldja?”
Damn, I think to myself as I swallow, maintaining eye contact with James’s poker-faced stare. I’m pretty sure she’s not related. There’s just no family resemblance at all. In fact, based on the fear she’s showing of these guys, I strongly doubt his story of her injuring herself.
Sure, she’s nuts. That much is clear. But victims usually have cause to be. Of that, I, of all people, should understand. She reacted with terror at the approach from these two. Unless she were a devout catholic, those slashes across her back would’ve been difficult to have self inflicted.
Her sexualized behavior suggests she’s been sexually assaulted as well. Something else I should be capable of recognizing by now. I’m pretty sure these guys just want to make sure they are covering their tracks.
But here’s what really worries me, aside from the understanding that I may currently have a shotgun trained on the back of my head by a goofy looking hoodlum in desperate need of a glass eye, even if I turn Penny over to them and go about my way, they’re still going to come after me down the road. At this point, I can’t change the fact that I’m a witness to something they wouldn’t want me to have encountered. All the worse since they now know I have an ex-cop as a friend. Shit I shouldn’t have told him that!
And I must admit that despite my strong doubts, James might be telling me the truth here and Penny may just be a runaway mental case. If she is, then my attempts to hide her might be a bit tough to explain without being terribly offensive. But, I remind myself, he knows she’s here already so I’m going to have to come up with SOME kind of excuse. And that’s if I even want to try to accept his far-fetched tale. It just doesn’t seem to add up.
Then a full-on flash of fantasy flickers through my narcissistic brain. What if these guys are part of a huge ‘crime’ ring dealing in some kind of slave girl trade? If I somehow work to reveal it all, turn in that information to my friend’s law contacts and bring down their organization, could I earn myself a pardon for my own crimes? Who knows who ‘Penny’ really IS too!?! Perhaps rescuing her could lead to being forgiven as well! She may have a wealthy father who’s missing her or perhaps she’s the relative of a state governor somewhere. Who knows? Maybe God has sent me this challenge so that if I navigate it properly I can be exonerated?
So what do I do then? It’s not just a question of whether this waif is worth an effort to help her, to which I’d be a truly soulless ass to ignore such need (and you DO have a lot to make up for!), but it’s also a matter of self-preservation as well. I have a feeling these guys are going to try to murder me at some point for having simply encountered their handiwork, either now or down the road. Still, a shootout here would not be well staged. I’m a rat in a cage from this position. I need a strategy!
_________________
Last edited by Tainted Biohazard on Sat Oct 01, 2011 6:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Tikanni Corazon
Honored Citizen
Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Topics: 75
Posts: 1286
Location: Running through the plains of my mind, my wolf spirit at my side (but doing so in the UK!).
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 10:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
*shudders* These guys really are...eugh! Even reading about it literally makes me feel on edge. Something very much in the style of Deliverance, or The Hills have Eyes. Creepy as hell! Especially Billy, and from the point of view of Randall, you almost feel like YOU yourself are the one at the drivers seat, your eyes trained away from this giggling loon with a shotgun. It's very unnerving, and undoubtedly some fabulous writing! Good job!
For the dp, hmmm...Well, I think we can pretty much assume that Randall isn't getting out of this one without a fight anyway, whether he hands Penny over to them or not. He's still got the gun hidden from them, his finger on the trigger. Though James could possibly have a weapon on him, we know that Billy definitely does. Leave Penny there on the floor for now. I don't think there's much chance she's going to come out of her hiding place unless it by force. I think Randall has to swallow his fears, and face the kid, find out where he's pointing that shotgun. And I think he should take the chance and get the first shot in. Shoot Billy, and hope to god that James is weaponless, then try and get him too.
I guess one thing that IS going to be a problem is the lack of gas. If James was telling the truth, then there is at least one more of them about (Burt), and that's going to make it problematic when it come to even trying to steal the gas. But anyway, yeah, stick to that plan of action, and see what happens. I don't think these guys are going to just let him be on his way, and if he's facing potential death, he can at least take some of them with him.
Great chapter, Tainted, even if it was quite a long time coming! Much enjoyed, and keep up the good work!
_________________
.... there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham....
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, 1887
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
Thunderbird
Elder
Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Topics: 104
Posts: 2139
Location: Rising from the ashes
Items
Legends
Fables
Strata-gems
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Good to see some forward progress on this one... lord knows it takes me forever to get to mine these days
Much enjoyed! Tough Decision Point. I say we need to talk our way out of this with an honest explanation of what has happened to us up to now but keep our hands on the trigger just in case we need it!
_________________
CHAPTER 25: Near-Light Speed (NEW CHAPTER! (12/4/2011))
Zephyrrr! And...
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| James just whipped it out and expects me to do the same. So I guess I'll just: |
| Play the role of a drug runner on the job in an attempt to throw off the need to relinquish my firearm. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Put up a front of being a badass without fear, revealing my weapon in just as intimidating a manner. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Infinite stall strategy. Talk him around in circles until he forgets to keep trying to disarm me or I can find another way around this. |
|
0% |
[ 0 ] |
| Hand it over and befriend enough in hopes for an opening to get the hell as far away from these guys as possible. |
|
100% |
[ 1 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 1 |
| Who Voted: Tikanni Corazon |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
