Wednesday, December 10, 2008


Quick! Call the doctor! I've been infected with the Splotchy Story Virus (aka V3)


Here are Splotchy's rules:
Here's what I would like to do. I want to create a story that branches out in a variety of different, unexpected ways. I don't know how realistic it is, but that's what I'm aiming for. Hopefully, at least one thread of the story can make a decent number of hops before it dies out.If you are one of the carriers of this story virus (i.e. you have been tagged and choose to contribute to it), you will have one responsibility, in addition to contributing your own piece of the story: you will have to tag at least one person that continues your story thread. So, say you tag five people. If four people decide to not participate, it's okay, as long as the fifth one does. And if all five participate, well that's five interesting threads the story spins off into.Not a requirement, but something your readers would appreciate: to help people trace your own particular thread of the narrative, it will be helpful if you include links to the chapters preceding yours.

Ready? Set? GO!

The bus was more crowded than usual. It was bitterly cold outside, and I hadn't prepared for it. I noticed that a fair number of the riders were dressed curiously. As I glanced around, I stretched my feet and kicked up against a large, heavy cardboard box laying under the seat in front of me. (Splotchy)
Rivulets of sweat began cascading down my face and I hurriedly wiped one from my brow before its salty bitterness could burn my precious, precious electric eye. No, the fright couldn't simply be attributed to my allergy to cardboard that always resulted in patches of bloody pustules and mottled skin akin to a poorly applied KISS® -- see, Gene? Put your lawyers away -- makeup job nor the fact that a fair number of the riders were curiously dressed like a toupee-less, yet masterfully make-upped Chaim Witz nor the fact that motionless tentacles were protruding from a number of randomly punched holes in the cardboard box that bore the hideous label Contents, frozen spawn of Old One, 72 oz. nor the realization that I had forgotten my glasses and couldn't see not whom, but what, was slowly shambling down the aisle towards me, its apparently glistening appendages slopping on the possibly filthy floor of this potential deathtrap of a bus recklessly driven by an attractively miniskirted, yet maniacal, maniac, her lapel bearing a button barely visible underneath a swath of jet-black hair and emblazoned with I worship Dagon, ask me how!, which I never did by the way.No, the fright couldn't simply be attributed to any of those mundane things. My wind wandered, dreaming up all sorts of misadventure where I stared death in the face and he stared back and then we had a series of staring contests of which I think I won nearly 40% of them, an excellent number against an entity bearing a head-lopping scythe, don't you think?I stared out the window, and the undulating, slowly shifting, tree-saturated landscape stared back. I won that contest but quickly remembered the old saw about looking into the abyss and having it stick its tongue out. I pulled my electric eye back into the bus and stared ahead instead.Next, a cavalcade of nervous fumbling and rummaging through my pockets to make sure I had an extra nine volt battery. I did -- the apparently glistening appendages slopping ever closer amidst a cacophony of bizarre, intermittent noise -- so I knew I wouldn't have to worry about my electric eye running out of juice until I got back.Which, of course, turned out to be the case, for how else could you be reading this erratic, poorly-written account of horror, unless you stumbled upon the abandoned wreckage of the bus and were rifling through my strangely mutilated corpse severely underdressed for the freezing weather and found this sheet of crumpled and charred paper riddled with poor penmanship along with my wallet that contained a drivers license, library card, work ID, three singles and a bus ticket!But you didn't because I'm not dead, for I just handed the bus ticket to the shambling beast which indeed was slimy for it -- and it, despite its general human visage, was the most accurate description I could muster -- was close enough that I didn't need my glasses."Last stoop fer yew vis'turs."Ahead in the distance, beyond the cardboard box's melting water -- at least, I assumed it was water, and you know what they say when you assume: Nyarlathotep tears you a new one, chump -- pooling at my feet, the creepy troupe of riders and the inhuman coughing of it, bathed by the light of the red moon, I saw the low, yet eerily distinct skyline of Arkham. (Randal)

Arkum hums with a high electric whine, a noise that is like tinnitus to the nth. The man with the monocle who was so strangely dressed coughed on me as the bus lurched to a stop. I hope it wasn't the virus. Now I hunch my shoulders against the freezing wind that hugs the frozen ground. I have two cloptomiters to go before I'm home and it's dark but for the purple neon gloom, looking like a distant nuclear disaster but is merely low light bouncing off the distant metropolis along with the nearly unbearable high whine. And then the wind blows it back upon itself and for a few moments of relief I almost hear silence. I can barely see the ground beneath my feet.What was I thinking when I dressed for the day? My feet are freezing. Thank the dog for the electric eye. I can see the faintly pink glow of my signature footprint along this well trod strip of stone. But it seems eerily empty for now. Odd. This time of night is usually humming with voices coming out of the dark. All I hear is the high city hum and the wind. Several layers of skirts fly up from a gust of wind and I almost topple backward. These tall rubber boots on their platforms are wonderful in a crowd, extend the stride, and strengthen the buttocks, lifting its heft of weight into the air like a pillow. But skirts?I hear the dog once and know I will turn left half way up the lane to my bunker. His voice always rings out once when I reach this spot and even without the eye I turn left, arm raised, palm flattened upward to make contact with the wire of the compound. I trail my gloved fingers along the fence until I feel the gate. Here I must remove my glove and place my naked palm against the freezing surface of the palm ID pad. And it slides open almost silently. I enter and hear it slide shut behind me. It locks with a hollow sound that makes me shudder with pleasure. Now small photocell lights flank the path like little pale full moons.I have a single bunker. I am gifted in certain arts. I can talk to the mad and read their minds. I can smell danger. And I am old. No small accomplishment in these times. So the dog, as he calls himself, and I live together in a cube of concrete with a pyramid roof alone, in silence, but for the sound of my own voice softly talking to myself and his rare great bark or low growl.He doesn't rise when I come in. But I hear him panting softly in his dark corner. The room is only warmed with his body heat. All the fuel was burned long ago. But food will be brought for both of us. He could so warm me better if we slept together but he will not. So I wear all my clothes trying to keep from shivering. I would never ask to sleep in his bed but have invited him into mine. Often. No luck.And now before my fingers stiffen in the cold I must answer the questions sent to me by the mad. Only the mad understand the mad, but not all the mad have my gift to hear their inner voices. We are all somewhat gifted. Some of us have visions, hear voices, but I can only listen to the inner voice, the one that never says aloud what it most fears.(Utah Savage)

The irony of hating that Will Smith movie where he was the only pure human he knew of makes me laugh until I cry only once a day usually, but this makes the second time today.
I'd like to be able to distract myself from this existence as I sometimes can with some maudlin or quirky tale that was uploaded to this confounded eye, but for the time being I just place it on its charger, wondering yet again what renewable substance has been able to sustain the charger's life these 25 years. If I knew that, would I be freezing here like this?
I wish someone, anyone, could or would answer that question. I wish Lilith were here to ponder it with me.

Yes, there are the halflings, but they really are not very good company. The electronic portions of them seem to override most of their humanness. But, compared to those the blogoscopic entities have fully infiltrated, they are a veritable schmorgesborg of spontaneity. I am not sure if I should admit that my insane mother was right and that my "specialness" would "save" me in the end, but those like me are few and far between these days.

What was once a blessing, my telepathic tendencies, has become such a curse that I would no doubt kill myself were it not for Lilith. My only hope is to find her
.
(Freida Bee)

But wait! If my telepathic tendencies were more reliable, I would know where Lilith is. But I do not know where she is. So perhaps I should rely more on my psychopathic tendencies, which are very reliable. You may recall that I am mad… quite mad, I might add, and in my delusional state I am certain that I no longer need Lilith to ponder with or pander to, as the case may be. What I do need, and need badly, is a man! A real man, 100% human, and with only one tentacle (ahem), if you know what I mean.

I am keeping my electric eye open (thank Xeus for that extra 9 volt battery!), but so far, neither the slimy, multi-tentacled, oddly dressed, freaks on the bus, nor the selfish dog-man in my cold concrete cube measure up to my strict standards.
Of course, there is a strong possibility that I should lower my standards, given the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, I am fricking old and getting older by the minute, and I’m crazy as a lonesome loon howling at the moon. So, I think I’ll try something different…maybe a train ride. I think there’s some kind of law that requires train engineers to be human, and it’ll be nice and warm in that engine room.
(
Madam Z )

I hereby tag:
Katie Schwartz
Spartacus
Bill Stankus
The Japing Ape
Honeysmack


7 comments:

Freida Bee said...

Awesome! I'm glad someone took a u-turn toward sex here finally.

And to geek it up all the more, the character could pick up the thoughts of those he or she was in the proximity of....

Thanks for being infected!

will said...

Sitting there, kicking that damn cardboard box, got me thinking of the last time I had to ride the bus to get out of town. That time I was lucky enough to sit next to Sheila with her tiny dog she kept in a travel bag kind of thing. That time, as I stretched out so I could pretend sleeping, I also kicked something under the seat. Only that time it yelped back at me and I almost pulled my 9 mil in reaction. Sheila, who was just another passenger to me, laughed and told me about her mutt. And that got us talking. Turns out she was also on the lam - seems she was escaping a boyfriend who pretended to be her manager. Sheila was a jazz singer - the kind that worked the dives and low rent places and her boyfriend was getting a little too pushy about her making more dough. He was wanting her to turn a few tricks and she would have no part of that. When he started slapping her around she caught the first bus out of town.

Long story short - Sheila and I hit it off. We both like CC on the rocks and we both smoked Lucky Strikes. That was a good start. We rode the bus to ‘Frisco and decided to get rooms in the Tenderloin, a place I knew from a previous case, the Hotel de Ville. Not fancy, but they had rooms with both a front and back doors and in my line of work, that's a good thing.

It was three in the morning when we checked into separate rooms on the same floor. I was in 400 and she was in 401. I could hear her running shower water, there’s nothing like being close to a hot looking woman to make you wonder, what’s next. I didn’t bother taking my suit off, I just fell on the bed and went to sleep. I had just started a dream about finally catching Bad Tony, when a loud, constant knocking sound woke me. Keeping my hand on my gun, I peeked through the door’s peep hole. Sheila was standing there in pajamas I can best describe in one word - sexy. Letting her in, she started babbling about bad dreams and fear of her jealous boy friend.

It was too easy, I took her in my arms and she melted like butter. God, she smelled good, probably some French perfume but I didn’t care - she was soft, warm and in my room. When she stopped sobbing she turned her head, looked square at me and gave me a long, long kiss. I don’t need a cop to tell me the light was green so I kissed her and carried her to the bed.

As I took off my suit, tie and shoulder holster, I could tell she was sizing me up - trying to figure me out, I suppose. After I was down to my birthday suit I quickly removed her next to nothing pj’s. She was a natural blonde, about five foot four and curvy as Jane and Marilyn. First thing she did, what all broads do when they see me naked, was to touch the two bullet scars in my shoulder. I usually say it was from the war but with Sheila I told the truth - the bullets were taken when I was a Chicago cop. Because of that shooting I was forced off the ‘thin blue line” and I then became a private eye.

Brushing her hands from the scars, I pushed her backward onto the bed and, rough hands or not, began touching her. That always surprises when I don’t jump all over them and instead touch them from head to toe, taking my time with the usual places. Her neck was tense, so I massaged it some and then stroked her stomach, her sides and then her breasts. She sighed and let herself relax. While I was touching her privates, she reached for me and got me going. This was going to be a good night,

Anonymous said...

Thanks Z... I'll give it a shot and see what how it goes. I'm not much of a fiction writer, but this sure beats having to do some work.

Randal Graves said...

Now I feel my part was written by one big prude. I like you the versions by you sexaholics better.

Splotchy said...

This is getting increasingly freaky.

Thanks a lot for being infected!

Anonymous said...

Okay Z... the virus has been spread.

will said...

Just a note.

I posted my story on my blog - it's slightly revised and edited - titled "Danger on 101".