He projects beams of pure heat energy (with neato reddish orangish tint) from his eyes; they’d simply slag whatever’s in the path. Thin plastic would vaporize, not melt. And then he’d have to get new ones, which he’d struggle to afford on a reporter’s salary. Read the rest of this entry »
“Wake up, Safat!”
A reddish, slender goblin barely old enough to grow warts sniffed and began crawling upright. His body ached from being crammed in between earthenware goods in a pony-drawn wagon. At least I don’t have to walk. The tall goblin finally managed to pry his eyelids open.
The sky was missing. Or at least most of it was. There were massive stone fingers blocking the Safat from the sky and its soft clouds. Though he was one of the tallest Unnamed goblins in Creta, Safat felt tiny and completely insignificant under the stones. The shadow stretched in all directions, farther than the eye could see. Where does this rock end? What kind of rock is it? How is it purple? Safat scampered out of the wagon with curious eyes. He had to hop slightly as he hit the ground to keep from falling. The wagon train was still moving. A dozen more wagons and ponies marched towards him and he trotted to his father.
“Where are we, Father?” Read the rest of this entry »
I’m officially spiking Cyclopean Highway. I really liked the idea I had behind it; mixing pulp fiction, penny dreadfuls, Lovecraftian horror and biker fiction was a lot of fun. But, holy crap, getting inside Vinnie’s head was just disturbing for me. I mean, it makes sense for the character to become despondent and suicidal towards the end of first act, but the story as a whole is just too dark for me to finish any time in the foreseeable future.
I’ll give away the ending: Read the rest of this entry »
Once part of an ardent fire,
Now I glow in darkness.
Still warm.
Still bright.
Send flames coursing through me;
Give me your breath.
I poured myself out.
For long stretching days,
I poured myself out.
What I could give, I bled.
Everything I had, I gave.
When I finally stopped pouring,
I was fuller than before.
I’m glad I’m not empty,
But, I want to pour for someone again.
“Oh, I’ll kill him for ye. Eh’s justa matter a’ how dead ye want ‘im.”
“I want him as dead as you can make him.”
“Can ye puta number behin’ that?”
Vinnie got a bullet loaded into his snub nose and closed the cylinder. This is it. Now, I can escape! The demon inside him writhed angrily. It lashed his mind with feelings of cowardice. Every authority figure in his life flooded his sight, completely obscuring the real world. His father and his mother cast stern looks that Vinnie had long learn promised pain and hunger. Principal Lovecraft, wearing his smooth black suit, clenched his jaw. His hand squeezed into a fist with one long finger stabbing outwards at him, like a accusing dagger. Vinnie knew this look well, as it always heralded lectures and detentions.
Mr. Joshi was there also. The normally peaceful features of his tanned face were torn apart by a look of utter disgust. Vinnie had never seen him look this way. While he could shrug off being a disappointment to his parents for the hundredth time, Mr. Joshi was the only teacher to take the time to listen to young Vinnie. The rejection was shattered glass shredding Vinnie’s insides. The literature teacher turned his back on Vinnie and began to walk away. Vinnie’s eyes hazed over as his hand reached out blindly for Mr. Joshi’s jean jacket. He fell to his face, sobbing.
The small monster inside Vinnie had won. There would be no suicide tonight. Vinnie would live on to nourish it.
The dirty gang of bikers was tired from the hour of hiking through the woods, but felt refreshed when they were finally able to stop. They knelt on the edge of the woods surrounding the massive temple. While it bore a passing resemblance to conventional Christian churches in America, no one who got as close as they were would make the mistake. A twisting, vaguely cone-shaped spire rose above the structure. It was a frog-like gargoyle rising up from the roof, stretching itself upwards to claw the sky with one of his fists. It looked as though it had man’s head gripped tightly in its lower paw. Read the rest of this entry »
“Well, shit. I guess it’s my turn, isn’t it?” August groaned and motioned for another beer from Abdul.
“Not until story time, Gus.”
“Ah, it’s a fuckin’ conspiracy! You bastards got Abdi to cut me off! Fine, you want to hear about it? Let’s take a stroll down memory lane
“I was a little kid coming home from the movie theater with my folks when a mugger with a gun burst out of the shadows and gunned them down.”
“No, that’s Batman, smart-ass.” Jack threw a handful of pretzels at August.
“OK. Well, I was on a field trip at the local university’s lab, observing an experiment with radiation when-”
“Shut the fuck up, Spider-Man!” This time a full salvo of pretzels flew from all the bikers.
“I was a reporter in Hub City.” August paused, as if he expected another round of flying bar food. “What? No one likes The Question?”
“Who the fuck is The Question?”
“Exactly!” August lean back in his chair smugly.
“Would you just get on with the fucking story? The REAL story?”
“Fuck off. They killed my family. I ain’t goin’ into it.” Read the rest of this entry »
“What kind of a fucked up person would give me a dog to eat?” Vinnie shoved his mug of beer disgustedly, like it was the offending chef.
“Now you see what we’ve been dealing with. The Church has their hooks in more than anyone could possibly imagine and there’s no way to know just how far they’re going to go.” Jack stood up and pulled his shirt up to his chest. It was filled with intricately carved scars, with a thick single scar running around the bottom of his belly, like a perverse belt. “They did this. They gashed their alien words into me and put something inside me. Something alive. I could feel it twisting as they held me in their hospital.”
“They have a hospital?” Read the rest of this entry »