Welcome to Lively Acres! - Part OneThe storm came quick, with a flash and bang. It her head, it sounded like 'Pomp and Circumstance' being played by a garage metal band. With really shitty amps. Rain blew in horizontal sheets, stripping trees of their spring plumage and scouring the poorly paved road free of oil and debris.
Thick, shimmering rainbows disappeared into the ditches and creeks, ushered along by an entourage of flotsam. The naked trees groaned where their roots dipped into the waterways, whether because of the foul brew or the winds testing their anchorage, she didn't know. The ringing in her head didn't offer any answers for that. Or any at all.
Thunder, coming close enough to kiss, rocked the corrugated metal shed and rattled her teeth in her head. Lightening, coming up quick behind, flashed and sizzled, chasing away the motes of light in her vision by virtue of blinding her completely. Temporarily, she hoped.
Soaking wet and steaming mad under a thick blanket of disorientation, she waited for her vision to return and her head to clear. Something had driven her to this rusted ruin of a shed in the deep woods, the only standing structure in a small, abandoned housing project. Something had covered her in bruises and torn half the hair from her head. Something scraped away the skin on her left side.
Just as soon as the shitty band quit playing and she could rest a little, she'd figure out what . . .
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *
Night. The garage metal had been replaced by crickets and a chill breeze rattling the newly nude branches. One limb tap-tap-thunked on the roof of the shed.
She opened her eyes and used her right hand to clear the bugs from her face and most of them from her hair. It was still raining, but softly, almost silently. She rolled, very slowly, out of the shed and into the rain. It helped in washing her injuries clean and clearing the remaining pests away. A spider skittered across her stomach in its attempts to escape. Clearly the shed had had other occupants before she'd discovered it. Oops.
Everything ached. Or burned. Of the two, the burning was more unpleasant. But the rain was taking care of that, as was the chill. Even the itching, the worst thing of all, was subsiding. Which was good because it's hard to scratch your own remaining skin off when your hands weren't quite working, she thought. But hey, at least she still had hands. She wasn't as sure of her feet. It was sort of numb from the knees down. She wasn't going to worry about that yet.
There was already so much chittering, shrieking, screaming terror trying to blot out her thought process that being unable to feel part of her body didn't even rate. It was actually kind of a relief. Something that didn't hurt!
She opened her mouth and let it fill with water, swallowing carefully to avoid aspirating the rain or the occasional mosquito. It was getting humid. Which probably meant more storms or the breeze was dying. That was a pity, it meant the itching would be back sooner rather than later.
No longer thirsty or itchy or as achy, she carefully roll-slithered back into the shed and slept.
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *
Day. Light poured in around a tall, wide shadow darkening her doorway.
"Well hell," the shadow said, its voice like gravel being ground to powder. "What's this?"
"Please . . . " she said, hoping her prolonged croak resembled speech.
But apparently it didn't. The shadow disappeared, leaving a gap for more blinding light to pour in and set her raw skin on fire. She screamed, a little, because the only screams she had left were little ones.
The shadow returned, blocking out the light and loomed over her.
"Breathe deep now," it grated, reaching down with one huge hand.
And wrapped a sweet-smelling cloth over her face, pressing it against her nose and mouth, suffocating her.
I'm liking it!
Very nice.
CPD is on a roll. This is good.
Whoa, holy shit! :eek:
Interlude : Ether Dreams
Daylight, weak and wavery through a dirty bit of glass and a doorless doorway. Pounding headache and unmoving limbs. Cobwebs filling an empty mind. What? Then something else, just out of sight on the other side of the doorless doorway.
A harsh raven croak voice.
"Damn it, Wallace! What the hell were you thinking?"
Whimpering. Slow rasping noises, a dinosaur dragging his footsteps on rickety wood slats. A slow, ponderous voice, heavy and deep.
"Pretty like butterfly. Ether makes butterfly sleep."
A fluttering of feathers or dirty rags and more croaking.
"There is a difference between sleeping butterflies and killing someone!"
Strangled guttural screaming and an incredibly loud crashing, shattering noise. Tear-thick howling receding in the distance.
"Never kill! Never kill! NEVER KILL!!!"
. . .
Smarmy, accented tones and a rhythmic tap-tap-tap, like the branch from earlier, only against the ground.
"There now, Elsie, you've sent him screaming into the woods again. Sobbing like a hysterical infant. If you aren't more careful of your temper he'll either put you to sleep like one of his butterflies or he'll throw himself off the ledge to escape your shrew tongue. I'm hard pressed to decide which outcome I'd prefer. It's so distressing to see a man of his size dribbling snot like an abandoned baby with no mother to wipe his nose."
The croaking grows more harsh, more high-pitched.
"You just shut your mouth, Mr. Brown. Your fancy words don't mean anything to me."
A delicate sniff. Amused contempt.
"They aren't fancy, per se. I just wield them with greater dexterity. Although to be fair, if you had my flair, you'd be an unstoppable force of destruction. As opposed to merely being a sharp-tongued xanthippe."
"What part of shut up is too complicated for you, Mr. Brown? Your lips are moving. Still them. And help me clean up this mess . . . Wallace's fit is going to wake the devil if not that poor mostly dead thing he dragged home."
Daylight slipping away and blackness again . . . a relief from the unwelcome noise.
Where . . . did the . . . crick . . . ets . . . go?
Creepy. I like this!
Good stuff.
I got an involuntary shudder down my spine after reading the first post!
Quote from: Net on June 03, 2013, 10:32:43 PM
Good stuff.
I got an involuntary shudder down my spine after reading the first post!
High praise!
I like this a lot, please to keep going, yes?
Well. I'm out of Justice League cartoons so it should NOT! be a problem.
ETA: added the NOT!, although I did find a Justice League mini movie thing to watch so that's why it didn't get done until 2 am or so. :P
Welcome to Lively Acres! - Part Two
She became aware of heavy, ragged breath filling the small space around her. It pinged off the walls and echoed. Sour but faintly minty, hot air washed over her face, blew into her ear. She didn't want to open her eyes. This was the part where the monster ate her, spleen first, while she watched and screamed. Which would suck because she was out of screams. Maybe whimpers would do.
"You awake. Breath changed. Can't fool me. Open eyes now." Rocks rubbing together flicked the words into her ears, like flint and steel trying to strike sparks.
Her head really hurt. And she was going to vomit.
Rolling over, she got her head clear of where she lay just in time.
A giant crash and a gurgling howl signaled the departure of whoever had spoken. She couldn't open her eyes yet, she was still pouring out the entire contents of her abdominal cavity onto the floor. She felt tears roll down her cheeks, snot pour out of her nose, and vomit splash up from the floor to spatter her cheek. Apparently she wasn't that far off the floor. She registered all this but couldn't do anything about it. Her body was turning itself inside out.
"What a mess!"
The shriek tore through her head and she heaved again.
"If you sick up all over everyone who tries to help you out, I see why you ended up beat to bits in Iser's old shed," the voice continued, settling into a hoarse croaking. "And you've messed yourself, too. That's fine, fine. I suppose I have to clean that up as well since your hands aren't fit to be called such."
The voice receded but never ceased.
"Wallace! You go on and fetch Mr.Brown's fancy tin tub. Quick now. You brought this burden on us and you're going to help take care of the mess. I swear. If I'd known when I was young that this is where I'd end up, I'd have thrown myself in front of a train."
Thudding, stumbling stomping made her head explode and she threw up again. But at least she was running out of things to vomit. A loud thunk and clang made her cry out and clutch at her skull, trying to keep the pieces from flying apart.
"Land's sake, Wallace. You're as useless as an ox in a nursery. Start hauling water. Double-time, now."
"Elsie mean," someone muttered.
"Wallace slow," the voice that was apparently Elsie retorted sharply. "You tell Mr. Brown I want wood for a fire and two sheets from his rag pile. Send Mazey to scrub up this mess."
"Mazey can't scrub."
"It's her or you, boy," Elsie said in a dangerous voice.
"I go."
"That fool will be the death of me and probably himself," Elsie croaked wrathfully. "Here girl, puke in this basin while I start sopping up this godforsaken mess."
And she felt herself abruptly jerked around and rearranged. Her eyes finally opened and she found herself lying at a different angle with a large plastic bowl beneath her face. The jostling made her head ring again and she heaved into the bowl but there wasn't much left to come up.
Elsie's incessant cackle and Wallace's stomping and clattering kept her head ringing for the next half hour as pain exploded from temple to temple, arcs of lightening setting her brain on fire. Finally, she was too exhausted for even dry heaves. Before she could do more than spit half-heartedly into the bowl to clear her mouth of the foul taste, she was stripped and tumbled into the tin tub of hot water. For a second, it was too hot and her skin felt like it was melting.
But then, at long last, her body decided it had had enough pain and shut off. Then it didn't feel anything but wet, which was wonderful. A rag and a bar of harsh-smelling soap landed in the water in front of her.
"Scour yourself good. Especially that abrasion on your left side, it's got dead bugs and dirt in it. If you need help, scream. If you don't, keep your mouth shut. I'll be outside. Wallace is getting another bucket of water for you to rinse with when you're done washing. Call out and I'll bring it in. Don't take all day, I have better things to do."
Elsie left, pulling a stained bit of canvas across the doorway for an illusion of privacy.
Left alone, the woman began to scrub as she'd been instructed. She did the long scrape first, while she was still numb. From waist to ankle, on her left side, the skin was completely gone. There was a patch of skin missing from her upper left arm as well, so she scrubbed that just as mercilessly. Then she scrubbed her face.
All the other injuries were bruises and probably fractures. But nothing was actually broken, thank whoever enabled that small mercy. Her fingers wouldn't work, though. And that was troubling. Instead of hands, she had claws. But they worked well enough for the task at hand so she didn't think too much on it. Her toes were scraped raw, a few were swollen and purple. Her right ankle was severely sprained, it was a livid black with a red spot dead center and blue around the outer edge. Like a lop-sided bull's eye. Some real damage there, but she could rotate the joint just fine, whispered threats of agony from her body aside. Other bloody spots on her legs washed away just fine and the water took on a pink tinge the longer she sat in the tub.
The only problem was that she couldn't get her back.
"Hey," she tried shouting but her voice refused to rise higher than a parched whisper. "Help. I could use a hand here," she rasped, banging on the side of the tub.
A head poked under the bit of canvas. Scraggly white hair festooned with twigs and leaves and bits of litter framed a pixie's face. One eye was purple and the other was cloudy white and . . . odd. Old scars covered the side of the face with the odd eye.
"Elsie isn't going to come unless you actually scream or call out like she said to," the woman, more a girl if the voice was an indicator, "So you can do that or I can help you. Your choice."
"You, please."
The rest of the woman's body slithered in under the canvas, quick as a greased snake. She was short, once she stood up. Barely five feet and so thin her bones poked through the skin here and there. But she was agile and seemed healthy enough as she took the rag and began matter-of-factly scrubbing.
"My name is Mazey," she said. Her voice had a sing-song quality, as if everything she was saying was part of a nursery rhyme. "It's spelled M - A - Z - E - Y. Not the other way, which is for corn. My name is for the labyrinths. You know what I mean?"
"Uh-huh. Thank you."
"Oh, my pleasure. I like helping but no one lets me. You have some pretty deep gashes, on your back, by the way. I can see all sorts of things I probably shouldn't be able to."
"Oh."
"Hmm. I saw a whistle pig get hit by a car once. It looked sorta like this, without the fur. I think maybe you need some stitching up. I'll get Mr. Brown."
And then Mazey was gone. The canvas curtain didn't even rustle as she whizzed through.
She was back, only a minute or so later. Suddenly there as if she hadn't left. With a bucket of water in one hand and a tattered but pristine bit of cloth in the other.
"Stand up." Mazey said briskly, the sing-song tone gone.
It was a struggle but she got as far as her knees. Then fell forward because her legs absolutely refused to function.
"Brace yourself with your arms and just stay like that. This is going to hurt." Mazey ordered, up-ending the bucket of scalding water almost before she finished speaking.
There was one more scream left after all. But it ended quickly.
Fucking hell. It's painful as fuck to read, but I can't stop.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 05, 2013, 06:16:51 AM
Fucking hell. It's painful as fuck to read, but I can't stop.
Sorry. Not really sure where it's coming from. The above wasn't what I intended to write at all. It's just what came out. I think I had an allergic reaction ether once, as a kid. Apparently it sucked a lot.
No need to apologize, it's really good. That's why it's so painful to read; the words transport me right into that reality, and holy fuck.
Yeah, this is really visceral stuff. Keep going.
I have a pathetically horrible habit of throwing so many extra words in my writing to capture the EXACT ESSENCE of what I'm seeing in my head. This does not work as 1.) No one wants to read a three chapter description of floor tiles and 2.) No one will actually see it the exact same way as I do, anyway. Part of the thing with books is that they use shit in YOUR head to sort of make building the story a joint effort between the dead tree and your brain. 3.) Stories with really really really long descriptions of EVERY SINGLE THING put me to sleep. Can't read Tolkien. So I don't want to do that.
Nutshell? Less is more. It seems to be working except my stories are going in wildly different directions and actual scenes take longer because . . . I haven't figured that out yet. But hey, good practice, right?
Maybe my next NaNoWriMo will not suck?
Fucking awesome!
I want to have CPD's fucked up little babies.
Quote from: Queen Gogira Pennyworth, BSW on June 06, 2013, 01:21:14 AM
I want to have CPD's fucked up little babies.
I think I just wrote you into the story, in my brain.
Welcome to Lively Acres! - Part Three
" . . . should she survives this, I for one, will be utterly amazed. I don't mind telling you I haven't seen injuries of this variety and severity on a single person in a very long time. It stands to reason that something quite heinous must have happened. I wonder that nothing in the news resembles her situation."
"You watch the news? No wonder you use too many words."
"Hush child, what do you know? Your idea of literature is the words on a cereal box you've scrounged from the dump."
"I like the colors on cereal boxes. So happy, even if they're just pretty trash."
"Yes. Thank you for so excellently proving my point."
"She not sleep. Breath change."
"Thank you Wallace. Your assistance has been, remarkably, of use."
A warm hand touched her shoulder. She twitched and her back seized in pain that left her gasping.
"Yes, yes none of that. Do desist. If you do not know, I am called Mr. Brown. I feel that after our somewhat unintentionally intimate acquaintance, I should introduce myself. And I must say; isn't it obvious that if you were to come to harm in our hands it would have come to fruition long before this juncture? Clearly, we have been a benefic. Before you commence flailing your limbs and gnashing your teeth, permit me to illustrate your situation.
I have stitched three lacerations on your back roughly the length of your spine. They were quite deep and required multiple layers of sutures. Luckily I have, shall we say, access to the highest quality in surgical supplies. Two more, merely handspans long instead of arm-lengths, only required a single layer of sutures. Antibiotic cream and bandages have been applied. Your other wounds have been tended to, the bruises iced and the sprains wrapped, but your hands and, ah . . .
. . . Yes, well. You must stay prone for as long as you are able, given that there's very little you can do without causing further damage, I suggest you take this time to reflect upon whatever series of events led you to this outcome and seriously consider an alternate path in future travels. Mazey has agreed to assist you and provide some entertainment. I apologize in advance if you find your intelligence evaporating and your will to live disappearing like a glacier in the Sahara but we make do with what we have.
You will be fed and tended to the best of our limited abilities. After that, well we'll see. I'm sure something interesting is bound to manifest given your apparent talent for calamity.
Oh, and Wallace wishes to extend his sincerest apologies for the incident earlier in the shed. He had no idea you were not, in fact, an exotic specimen of lepidoptera rhopalocera."
"So sorry. So so sorry. Saw pretty. Got confused."
"Yes, see? What utterance could possibly be more heartfelt than that? Do you have any questions, my dear?"
She opened her eyes. How much of the last several days had they been closed? It felt vaguely unnatural to see. Colors were alien. Shapes were ghostly.
Mazey's white-topped, pixie face peeked around the form of a painfully thin man in an ancient but immaculate set of tails and a top hat, brown instead of black. His face was youthful and unlined but his neck and hands were a mass of wrinkles piled on top of one another. And he wore a powdered wig.
Wallace, almost a foot taller and twice as wide as the well-dressed man, was hulking in the doorway. It seemed to be his thing, she thought, noting the too-small Superman t-shirt and the stained cargo pants he wore. His shoes were white but yellowing sneakers, battered high-tops in a style decades old. Superman's S logo had been painstakingly drawn on each shoe, over and over again with some sort of marker or paint. His hair was flat and matted against his skull, a shaggy black mess.
And her? She lay on a bench made of cinderblocks and boards, flat on her belly. A pile of pee-smelling foam and a fuzzy purple blanket under a pristine but faded sheet made up her bedding and protected her from the splintery wood. She was still naked, unless the other sheet she wore counted as a dress of sorts. The skin on her arms was mottled. Pink and white splotches, red blemishes, vivid blue veins, brown and tan patches . . . she was a tortoiseshell colored human.
Beyond Wallace, through the doorway, she could see tufts of green grass and a slice of sky an even more vivid blue than the veins standing out against her odd skin. It hurt to look at it. And it hurt to have them all staring at her. Waiting for an answer. She really only had one question but she didn't want to ask it. They wouldn't know. She asked anyway.
"What is my name?"
They stared at her for a moment. Then Mazey tugged on Mr. Brown's tuxedo tails. "I was right. You owe me ten dollars and a trip into town."
Ah-ha. I really like that chapter.
I'm loving this. Hurts to read, but in a good way. Like breaking your leg whilst doing something epic!
I love how a sort of development begins to emerge.
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 07:30:00 PM
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
But it is now jammed up again, itself. :lulz:
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2013, 07:31:14 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 07:30:00 PM
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
But it is now jammed up again, itself. :lulz:
That really is bitterly ironic, especially because it's poised at such an exciting moment in the storyline. I mean, shit is GOING DOWN!
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2013, 07:31:14 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 07:30:00 PM
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
But it is now jammed up again, itself. :lulz:
That really is bitterly ironic, especially because it's poised at such an exciting moment in the storyline. I mean, shit is GOING DOWN!
I threw in a small piece to LOBB last night. I had a brain wiggle about another arc to write but I didn't write it down and thus forgot it. We'll see if it comes back.
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2013, 07:31:14 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 07:30:00 PM
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
But it is now jammed up again, itself. :lulz:
That really is bitterly ironic, especially because it's poised at such an exciting moment in the storyline. I mean, shit is GOING DOWN!
Problem is, my head isn't in the right spot, on account of RAGE RAGE RAGE.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2013, 08:17:17 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 08:00:53 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 06, 2013, 07:31:14 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on June 06, 2013, 07:30:00 PM
This is just so so good.
I like how it seems like LOBB broke a dam.
But it is now jammed up again, itself. :lulz:
That really is bitterly ironic, especially because it's poised at such an exciting moment in the storyline. I mean, shit is GOING DOWN!
Problem is, my head isn't in the right spot, on account of RAGE RAGE RAGE.
Gotta wait for it to be ripe.
Welcome to Lively Acres! - Part Four
"Nightingale," Mazey suggested, drumming her heels against the wall. From her partially upside down perch on the splintery porch, back on the slats, legs up against the wall, she could see into the wood shack, the wry twist of their guest's mouth.
"She sing?" Wallace asked hopefully. He sat inside the door, out of the sun. Too much light made his head woozy.
"No. She does not sing," their still nameless guest said from the uncomfortable perch, belly flat on a thinly covered wood bench built into one wall. She flicked her eyes up at Mazey and Wallace before returning her attention to the myriad of newspapers spread on the floor within easy reach and reading distance.
Mr. Brown had procured them when he'd taken Mazey into the town. His theory being that she could search for clues to her identity, keep up with current events, and occupy her mind at the same time.
"After all," he'd remarked with an understanding grimace. "The company we keep can be a trying lot. The mind fair screams for diversion after a long afternoon of such nonsensical discourse as what can be found among our comrades."
Though he'd been unable to explain why he claimed them as comrades at all, when she'd asked.
"She doesn't sing or dance or anything at all particularly requiring of talent," she said. "And she would much rather prefer not to be named after a bird or any animal or plant at all, thank you."
"Opinionated, easily annoyed, and arrogant," Mazey observed, thunking her heels some more. "Those are clues."
Despite herself, the amnesiac laughed. "All that, then, is what I will look for in the description for missing persons. It will narrow things down considerably, I think."
"Good plan." Wallace said with a sage nod. "You leave when you find name?"
She looked up, noting Mazey had quit her noisemaking. A subtle warning to tread softly here. "I don't know, Wallace. I don't think so. There has to be a reason why I ended up where you could find me. So I need to find that first. A name is just a place to start looking for a reason."
He nodded again, though she knew he didn't understand. "You stay longer. Pretty. Nice. Make here better."
"Well then I will stay a little bit longer," she said, giving him a smile.
Wallace smiled big and jumped to his feet, shaking the shack. His huge shape filled most of the interior space with his body and with its shadow. It was amazing how much physical space he took up when his personality took up so little. Sitting down he blended into the wall. Just another piece of wood until he spoke.
"I tell Elsie. She make more supper," he announced, bolting clumsily from the shack and taking off up the track at a fast plod.
Mazey came into the shack once he was out of sight and took up a spot on the floor, her slight body taking up less than a third of the space he'd required.
"You handled that well," Mazey said. "He gets fierce protective like, about his friends here. Even Elsie, who's a harpy and only yells at him. He'd have hurt you or himself if you'd said the wrong thing. Probably both because it would break his heart if he hurt you."
"I guessed."
"So how about Robin? It's only partly a bird's name. It's a bandit's name, too. And I think part of a fast food chain's name. That's pretty fancy for these parts."
"No way."
"Lark?"
"Still can't sing. Still a bird's name."
"Jay?"
"Bird. Also a male name, isn't it?"
"Who cares? Get your avant-garde on, girl!"
"Did Mr. Brown teach you that bit of French?"
"No. I used to teach French, Spanish, and Japanese. We all had lives before here, you know. I was a college student majoring in linguistics, who tutored on the side. Made good money, too." Mazey said, matter-of-factly. "I'm not always crazy. None of us are always anything."
"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. Mr. Brown said the other day about your knowledge of language and cereal boxes . . ."
Mazey waved a hand. "It's an in joke. No offense taken. You didn't know."
"How did you end up here, then?"
"How did you?"
"Oh."
Mazey stood and stretched. Then she came around the side of the bench and flicked back the light sheet covering the much chagrined, nameless woman's bandaged-and-salved back. The long slices and deep tears were healing cleanly but slowly.
"Does it hurt today?" She asked same as she did every time she made the check.
"Like a thousand fire ants digging into my flesh and taking bites out."
"Well that's better than yesterday. It was a million fire ants then. No seepage today, not even where your back jerked when Wallace jumped up like that. Everything is holding." Mazey put the sheet back and tucked it in so a stray breeze couldn't knock it aside, since the shack had no door. "I'll be back later with your supper and to take you to the bathroom."
"Mazey," the helpless woman said.
"What?"
"Nightingale isn't a bad name, is it?"
Mazey laughed, slightly wild and cackle-y. "No it isn't. But I think you're right. You're not a bird at all."
Interlude : Running Late
Pissed and running late, he ground out the latest in a long chain of cigarettes in a dish overflowing with spent butts. His cellphone rang before he could light another. Swearing vehemently, he answered it.
"You have ten minutes."
He threw a ten down on the tiny oil-cloth covered table and left immediately. It only took five minutes to get where he was going. By the time he made it through the endless rounds of security checks and being scowled at by hired goons, he was late. Later. More late than he'd been already.
A withered husk, propped up in a wheelchair, glared at him with burning eyes in sunken sockets.
"You are late."
"I'm so - "
One desiccated hand twitched minutely. "Do not lie to me. Do not waste my time. You lost her and now you are too chicken shit to face me."
"It isn't li - "
"Do not. Waste my. Time. Time, especially mine, is a precious commodity worth far more than you. Find her. Now. Yesterday."
The chair was wheeled away by a stone-faced thug in scrubs. The scrubs clashed with the fire-power the 'nurse' was strapped down with. A very clear message. Several clear messages.
"Fuck," he muttered, and reached for his cigarettes.
squeeeeeeee!
Welcome to Lively Acres! - Part FiveShe flipped through newspaper after newspaper, looking for some clue that someone noticed she was gone and knew who she'd been when she went missing. She thought she should be feeling sad that there was nothing resembling her situation, that it hadn't been reported. But instead filled her with dread. She was missing from wherever she'd been. There was no police involvement. No outreach from devastated relatives. But she knew someone was looking for her. She could feel them getting closer and it wasn't a pleasant sensation. Like someone slicing open her belly to dump ice water inside, then stapling it shut and shaking her until it melted. And then more ice was added.
Supper came and went in the form of merry Mazey and bitter Elsie bringing her food, helping her slide off the board and hobble to the outhouse a few yards beyond her shack, cleaning her up, and then getting her comfortable again. An extra blanket was put over her back and tucked in to keep her warm and the curtain they'd rigged over the empty doorframe pulled across, as they left.
She tidied the papers into a neat stack and then tucked her arms up under the blanket, to her sides. Just her head poked out from the covers.
Night came swiftly here, after a fashion. The days dragged on forever until, at the last moment, darkness swooped in and sent everyone to sleep. No candles or artificial light of any kind was used by this rag-tag group. Everyone went to bed when it got dark. It was little better than camping. Just the cricket song and starlight trickling in along the bottom of the curtain.
With the blanket on her back, over the sheet and bandages, she felt ungainly and cumbersome. Bound to the bench she lay on.
"I'm a tortoise," she said to the trickle of night, creeping into the shack. "Stripped of my shell and left to die."
She lay in the dark, waiting for sleep. It would be more comfortable if she could pillow her head on her arms but then her hands would touch her face and that odd scaly, scabby skin that covered her fingers and the backs of her hands gave her the shivers. Something had happened to make the surface of her hands bubble and crackle like cooking pig skin, except the palms which were smooth, shiny, slightly iridescent, and taut with scar tissue.
Had she cupped something in her hands? Something too hot to touch? When the scabs fell off the back of her hands and she held them between herself and the light, she could see the bones, bowed slightly and twisted. The mottled skin of her forearms, blotchy pink, red, white, brown, beige, gray, and black . . . all the colors people came in, splattered on her flesh.
But it didn't bear thinking about. Her body shivered and her teeth chattered despite the warmth of her cocoon. So she listened to her heart beat. Counted the crickets. Paced each breath, slowly in. Hold it. Slowly out. Hold it. Until the shivering stopped.
She was a tortoise stripped of her shell, left to die, and partially roasted alive. But she was alive and she planned on staying that way.
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *
"Morning, girly-girl," Mazey trilled, throwing aside the curtain and flooding the shack with sunlight.
"Inhuman monster!" The invalid moaned, throwing up her hands to shield her eyes from the light, jerking sideways, and falling off the bench. Taking her cocoon with her, of course.
She screamed as her back hit the floor.
"Oh Great Goodness. I'm so sorry, so sorry." Mazey chanted, fixing the padding on the bench and lifting the screaming woman back on to it as if she weighed nothing. "Just hush hush hush, let me see. So thoughtless, me."
The blanket and sheet were peeled away and the bandages pulled off. As soon as air hit the tender flesh and the wounds, she began screaming again, muffling them with a mouthful of blanket. Hot knives, melting needles, rusty flaming hatches were all biting deep into her back. Shredding and tearing. Devouring her in slow mouthfuls and swift chops.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," Mazey said over and over.
"I see I came in good time," Mr. Brown announced, sliding swiftly into the shack and standing over the exposed injuries. "Split sutures everywhere. Mazey, there is a white plastic jar in my cottage. It is more numbing agent. Fetch it swiftly now, there's a good girl."
Mazey was gone in a flap of skirt and the slap of bare feet on wood. Mr. Brown hovered his wrinkle-caked hands over the wounds.
"Plenty of heat but no undue redness or signs of infection. Slow, deep breaths, my girl. The more you relax the less it will hurt. It sounds like pure nonsense, no you needn't curse my existence, bite harder on the blanket then. Your brain is telling you all manner of things about your back and I assure you, aside from the multitude of pulled sutures, it is fine. Here, see?"
He ran one puppy soft finger across her shoulders, which went from on fire to merely itching. He ran his finger along either side of her ribcage and very carefully around the slashes in her back.
"Nothing here. Nothing wrong. It's just your brain and panic and confused nerve endings. Calm down, there's my girl. Deep breath."
Mazey returned, ashen faced, with the jar. She yanked the lid off and held it out for Mr. Brown, who produced a pair of surgical scissors and carefully removed the ruined sutures. After every one, he dabbed a light touch of the cream. It was cool and soothing and took away the itch and the pain.
Soon her back was no longer being hacked into pieces or devoured. It was just a back with some cuts on it. And they didn't hurt that much, really. Exhausted she looked over her shoulder at Mr. Brown and Mazey.
"I'm a tortoise. Who had my shell cut off. That's what I decided last night. That's what it feels like."
"A very apt analogy," Mr. Brown said soothingly.
But she'd fallen asleep.
"I've killed her," Mazey said mournfully. "She went delirious and I killed her."
"Nothing of the sort, silly girl. That was an epiphany, on her part. Cease your wallowing and leave her rest. Keep watch for she'll require food and tending when she awakens. I can't imagine she'll be out long. I believe I've discovered a method of discerning her identity." Mr. Brown chided her and then left in a flurry of tails and cane tap-tap-taps.
Mazey stared mournfully after him. "I all but killed her and he's excited. And he says I'm the daft one."
* . * . * . * . * . * . * . *
"Elsie!" Mr. Brown called, as he approached the old witch's house. It was partly a dug-out, being embedded into the hillside, and partially a haphazard pile of wood nailed together and stuck in the dirt. But was sturdy, he had to admit. And didn't leak, have drafts, or let in bugs. It just looked like a rat trap. Which he rather suspected she'd intended. "Come out, you cackling biddy. I've got an idea and I need your help."
Elsie burst on to her porch with a home-made broom in one hand and a bit of metal folded into a dustpan in the other. "Keep it up, fancy-man," she cawed. "I'll see you dancing on a pole in my vegetable garden yet."
"May you make merry with my bones once my flesh is dust, dear woman. But until such a time, I require your assistance." He stopped at the edge of the porch, knowing better to set a toe on it without her express permission. "Give me your library card."
"Like hell," she crowed, changing her grip on the dustpan to emphasis its oddly razor sharp edge. "Use yours."
"I lack the ability to do so," he said through gritted teeth. "The fine is perilously large and renders the card unusable. But I need research materials particular to the . . . "
"Well then what about Wallace's?" Elsie demanded. "Or Mazey's?"
"Damn it, woman, I don't have time for this. Will you help me or not?" He shouted, dropping his verbosity in excessive frustration.
"Well then," she all but cooed, peeling back her lips in a smile that was more a baring of suspiciously sharp teeth than anything else. "I suppose I will. But you'll owe me dear, fancy man."
"What?" He asked warily.
"Since you'll be going into town, I need a ten pound bag of flour, five pounds of sugar, cornmeal, a pound of ripe but not over-ripe tomatoes, a six pack of that local microbrew I like, and a large container of Morton's uniodized salt. Out of your pocket. Oh, and a bag of Hershey Kisses. I do love a small sweet treat now and again."
"Highway robbery, ma'am. Why wouldn't I just pay the fine on my own card instead of stuffing your larder?" He asked angrily.
"Because you want my OTHER library card. The one with special access. The one SHE gave me," Elsie said knowingly, disappearing into her house and returning without the broom or the oddly sharp dustpan.
Instead she held up a blue and white plastic rectangle the size of a credit card. She threw it to him with a mad laugh. He caught it, but barely. It weighed more than it should and buzzed in his hand as if alive and attempting to fly away.
"If you hadn't pissed HER off, SHE'd have give you your own card. But no, you can't use one word with a winning game of Scrabble will do," Elsie cackled. "Bring it and everything I asked for back before sundown."
"Harpy. Foul-mouthed witch." He muttered, gingerly tucking the card into his tuxedo's breast pocket.
"I believe you mean 'Thank you, sweet Ms. Elsie'," she cooed.
"You! I. HOW DA - " He stopped. Breathed. "Thank you, sweet Ms. Elsie," he said, sweeping off his top hat and giving her a courtly bow. "Your assistance is as gracious as it is timely."
Then he turned on his heel and stomped away, ignoring her howling laughter. The things he did for strangers, he thought. The things he did . . .
Holy monkey balls! A semblance of plot emerges!
CPD, this is really great.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 10, 2013, 09:54:40 PM
Holy monkey balls! A semblance of plot emerges!
CPD, this is really great.
Thanks. It's a bit slow going. Every time I sit down to write I get interrupted. So it's a bit piecemeal.
Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 10, 2013, 10:04:18 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on June 10, 2013, 09:54:40 PM
Holy monkey balls! A semblance of plot emerges!
CPD, this is really great.
Thanks. It's a bit slow going. Every time I sit down to write I get interrupted. So it's a bit piecemeal.
The work is appreciated!
This is developing wonderfully!
Interlude : On the Scent
Standing outside a trashy diner three states and a thousand miles away from the sick man in the wheelchair, Cad found himself regretting his life up until this point. Dingy gingham curtains on the other side of dusty, greasy windows did nothing to disguise the porcine patrons and trough-worthy cuisine.
How she had gotten this far, he had no idea. Probably traded truckers blow-jobs for a lift. She was that unclean, unscrupulous. She didn't pay what she owed if she could avoid it. It made him so angry. Especially when he was caught in the crossfire between her and the old man.
Prodding the diner door open with one finger, he entered and let the door swing shut behind him. The floor was sticky black and white vinyl tile. The counter and table tops were sticky, chipped Formica. Patsy Cline rattled forth from an ancient and battered jukebox. He sat, somewhat gingerly, on a duct-tape mended stool at the counter and waited.
On the third silent recitation of 'Hail Mary', a waitress with frizzy hair and holes in the armpits of her peach-colored smock, dropped a pile of one-page laminated menus beside him. She handed him one and proceeded to start wiping the others down with a dingy rag.
"Today's soup of the day is beef. Barley can be added for an extra fifty-cents. Lunch special is on for another thirty minutes. Half a sandwich and a small cup of soup with fries and coffee for four dollars and twenty-five cents. Dinner special is house salad, steak and a baked potato for ten dollars." She recited purely by rote, without making eye-contact or smiling in even his general direction. "Desserts are apple pie, cherry pie, pecan pie, and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles."
"You make it all sound so appealing," he said, glancing over the menu. "What I really want, however, is information."
"That isn't one of the specials," the waitress replied, still uninterested. "Can't stay if you aren't eating."
"Then I will have an order of fries and a glass of water," he said, managing to do so without grinding his teeth. "And anything you know about this . . . person would be very helpful."
He held up a wallet-sized photo of a brown-haired woman with serious eyes and a wary smile.
The waitress ignored it and went to place his order. He put the picture on the counter and waited. Patiently. Ever so patiently.
My Lord, how did I miss this? Fanfuckingtastic, CPD!
You only missed the last few bits. Unfortunately I've stalled out on it, can't decide which direction I want to go. :P My brain gets in the way of writing every time. Probably just going to wing it. :P
Thanks. :D
Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on June 30, 2013, 05:38:00 PM
You only missed the last few bits. Unfortunately I've stalled out on it, can't decide which direction I want to go. :P My brain gets in the way of writing every time. Probably just going to wing it. :P
Thanks. :D
That's what I do. I have no idea what'll happen when I sit down to write a new chapter. :lulz: