Babes, Booze and Bullets

[Chickstick]

My plans to update this tonight hit a bump when it emerged that I can't find my memory stick (and also am frankly too tired to look for it tonight), and also by the fact that I've been called on short notice to look after my cousin by my uncle.

 

I'll update sometime in the next couple of days, but I won't have access to a computer for the next couple of days, except from school (and they've blocked GTAF. Scumbags) so expect part twelve Thursday night at the earliest.

 

This, by the way, is my 1000th post. Not that it really means anything, but there you go.

[Chickstick]

Twelve: The Docks

 

The rookie cop who directs me to the body looks ill. I tell him to go have a break, have a coffee or something, but he shakes his head. I wish I were still as dedicated to my job as him.

 

The Central City docks, like most of the Armpit of America, were world famous in the early 50s. By the time Nixon lied about being a crook, though, they had fallen into disuse after the infamous Gigantica accident of 1962. Somehow two massive cruise ships managed to crash into each other, sinking into the polluted waters with the loss of two thousand lives.

 

The docks stink.

 

The putrid smell of fish hangs everywhere. I’ll still be smelling fish on my clothes in a week. I reach for my cancer sticks, but pause when I see the “No naked flames” sign nailed to the wall of a nearby shed. I ignore it and light up. The rookie gives me a dirty look but stays silent. Good for him.

 

A small crowd of people stand together on the pier closest to me. A light flashes; a journalist doing his bit to calm down the populace by showing huge, full colour pictures of naked, mutilated women on the front page, with screaming headlines like “INSANE SERIAL KILLER STALKS CITY! Lock up your daughters!” I sigh, hoping the hack has enough morals in him to refrain from putting a photograph of a mother’s dead daughter in his paper. He won’t.

 

Halliwell looks up from the crowd and spots me. He jogs, running almost, reaches me and says blandly, “Your investigation is safe. Even the mayor wants this continuing, and about half of all the whores in this city would recognise him by the shape of his prick alone.”

I laugh, the first time in days. It feels good.

I hold out my hand and say, “I’m sorry about last night, Henry. I… well, I acted like a dick.”

He grasps my hand and shakes it, allowing a small smile to touch the corners of his mouth.

“It’s in the past. Now let’s go check out this whore.”

 

A thick pool of blood surrounds the body. She’s been dead no more than a couple of hours- the flies haven’t had a chance to lay their eggs in the open wounds yet. The thought of this makes me want to gag.

 

Her hands were tied behind her back with thick rope. They were tied so tightly they dug into her skin, and droplets of blood have run out, merely increasing the feeling that she suffered before she died. She’s naked from the waist down, and her shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a blood-smeared bra beneath. Her mouth was held open in a never-ending scream, lodged that way by a thick wad of cloth the killer had used as a gag.

 

The whore’s red hair is lying in a heap by the side of the body. She had been scalped.

 

I swallowed and asked quietly, “Where’s the axe?”

Halliwell looked at me and said, “It’s still stuck in her back. We can’t get it out yet because her lungs will come out with it and the forensics guys want the body intact for testing."

 

I move slowly round to look at the sharp metal that killed this young woman, and instantly regret doing so. There’s a note pushed into the crater in her back that the axe made that nobody else seems to have noticed, it being covered in blood.

 

I mouth the words silently and struggle to stop myself from vomiting.

The note reads:

 

“Hey cops, you think this is the worst. I havent even started yet. I think I’ll go for a Jap next, Ive always wondered what there screems sound like. Ha ha.”

 

Underneath that, written in the blood of the dead whore:

 

“Your frend,

The Axeman.”

Edited March 22, 2008 by Chickstick

[longkissgoodnight]

Awesome! Your "suspense" skills are very talented and you keep on getting beter and better at it.

[Vercetti21]

Best chapter yet. Great descriptive skills, character interaction, and overall just damn cool. The atmosphere you create in each chapter is so real it's almost creepy. Also, I'm glad we've begun to investigate on the main plot, not that I wasn't interested before.

[Chickstick]

Thanks guys.

 

I agree that it's good we've finally started with the main plot. Introductory chapters are fine for a while, but too many (and let's face it; I had about ten in this- and that's probably the most you could write without boring the reader) stall the flow of the story and leave followers disinterested.

[longkissgoodnight]

I am still interested in it - no matter of how many introductory chapters you wrote.

[-/TNT\-]

�Hey cops, you think this is the worst. I havent even started yet. I think I�ll go for a Jap next, Ive always wondered what there screems sound like. Ha ha.�

Grammatical error! Just nitpicking, 'twas excellent. And here's a belated congratulations for your 1k.

[Chickstick]

 

�Hey cops, you think this is the worst. I havent even started yet. I think I�ll go for a Jap next, Ive always wondered what there screems sound like. Ha ha.�

Grammatical error! Just nitpicking, 'twas excellent. And here's a belated congratulations for your 1k.

I'm surprised nobody else noticed that; I actually did it deliberately. As you may know Jack the Ripper sent some letters like that. I thought it would be interesting to include it, just to make the killer seem even more insane.

 

Here's an example of a Ripper letter, the famous "Dear Boss" letter that was sent to the Central News Agency:

 

 

Dear Boss,

I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I cant use it. Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly wouldn't you. Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. Good Luck.

 

Yours truly

Jack the Ripper

 

 

Dont mind me giving the trade name

 

PS Wasnt good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha

[-/TNT\-]

Great touch, but that's one hell of a hard reference for anyone to cotton on to. And I just noticed you spelt scream wrong too in that sentence. My career as a grammar nazi is at an end. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha

[Typhus]

Just read chapter one. Most impressive. Like the Film Noir feeling I'm getting from it. You know, you have a real talent for descriptive writing, some people can write reams but not paint a picture as clear as the one you present.

I'll have to continue with this.

[Chickstick]

Thanks for the comments.

 

Great touch, but that's one hell of a hard reference for anyone to cotton on to.

I never even thought about it to be honest. I have something of a... morbid interest in serial killers and the like, and I just assumed that most would know about the Ripper letters. Stupid of me, but at least you know now.

 

I'll update this in the next couple of days as it appears most of the people who are following this are up to date.

[Typhus]

Okay, read it all. One of the best stories on here, you must have had a lot of fun writing this am I right? Especially the serial killer names for locations in the city, I do that myself. And whilst I've always been a little stuffy about sex scenes yours was done in relatively tasteless manner which is a refreshing change from some of the stuff I've read before.

May I ask though, was Jack the Ripper the only influence for the killer? Because when I heard "Axeman" my mind instantly turned to this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axeman_of_new_orleans

Oh, and don't worry, you're a lot better at dialogue than you give yourself credit for. I just love the clear self loathing Ross has for himself. For whilst he is in a decaying city he doesn't make it better, when push comes to shove he just acts like an animal too. And I think that's a really interesting dynamic you've got there.

Edited March 23, 2008 by Typhus

[Chickstick]

 

May I ask though, was Jack the Ripper the only influence for the killer? Because when I heard "Axeman" my mind instantly turned to this guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axeman_of_new_orleans

 

Good spot. The Axeman is an amalgam of several different serial killers, the Axeman of New Orleans amongst them.

 

And yeah, I had a lot of fun writing it.

[Chickstick]

Thirteen: The Freeman House

 

The Freeman house is situated in the seediest part of town, the area where you’re more likely to find a used condom sticking to the bottom of your shoe than chewing gum. It’s a large building, about sixty years old, but falling into disrepair. Our buddy Carl obviously doesn’t consider cleanliness to be high on his list of priorities.

 

The windows are boarded up, and a knock at the door wields no answer. I kick the door in, cursing as I stub my toe. I can feel it throbbing as I make my way into the dirty, but surprisingly well lit, house.

 

There’s nothing in any of the downstairs rooms, nothing at all. Making my way to the stairs, I steel myself for what perverted horrors Freeman has stored away up there. The last time I was here, it was the rotting corpse of his mother; naked as the day she was born, tied to the bed. I don’t think I have ever been as surprised as I was that day.

 

The boards creak underneath me as I make my way up. I imagine myself in a trashy horror film, looking behind me to see a guy with an axe ready to bury it into my head. As stupid as it seems, I get a little nervous. I wish I’d brought Gacy along with me.

 

The landing at the top of the stairs is as empty as the rooms below. So is every other room I check, apart from one, door closed tight, right at the end of the corridor. I sneak up to it and step on a loose floorboard. It sounds loud enough to wake the dead. I hold my breath and wait for an eternity. Nobody comes, and as I continue my slow passage down the corridor I slip my gun out and load it.

 

I slip my sweaty hand over the doorknob and count to ten. I click it round and push the door open quickly.

“Police! Don’t move!” I shout, parading my pistol to an empty room. The only sound is the wind bellowing outside, and what appears to be a mouse scurrying about in the walls. It seems I didn’t need to bring Gacy along after all.

 

My eyes adjust to the light and I cast my eyes over the contents of the room. Like the rest of the house, it is sparsely decorated, and a small single bed occupies one corner. A tatty, dirty sheet lies forlornly on top of it, revealing white stains on the bedding beneath. On the bed are scattered a load of dirty magazines. Freeman’s favourite appears to be Shaven Bitches Uncut.

 

In the corner there’s a small wardrobe, full of the usual sh*t you accumulate over the years and can never quite bring yourself to throw out. Old family photographs, school report cards (Carl somehow managed to scrape a B in English) and the like. The only difference is that Freeman’s closet contains his mother’s underwear (I shudder at the thought of what happened between them in this very room) and a glint of metal in the corner.

 

A glint of metal?

 

I almost throw myself into the closet to get whatever caused the flash of light out. My hands come across something hard and sharp at the edges. A large part of it though, rather than smooth as you would expect it to be, is dry and textured. Dried whore’s blood.

 

“Damn…” I say to the empty house.

 

The seemingly empty house replies, “Damn indeed” as I feel the cold metal of a pistol placed against the back of my neck.

 

Damn indeed.

[longkissgoodnight]

Awesome! But I have a question that I would like for you to explain to me please. You wrote that: "I steel myself for what perverted horrors Freeman has stored away up there". Dont you mean to say the word steal? Because steel is like a metal or iron piece. And how could your main character make himself into metal?

[galvanize]

Im guessing the axeman is asocial. my suspect (freeman) portrays the asocial behaviour (Much like ed gein) as he

A)sems to be out to do it to get known (showing off, attention seeking)

B)Freeman doesn't seem to have the intelicgence to plan his attacks as he clearly left the body to be found (se comment above) unlike killers such as john wanye gacy (pogo the clown)

 

so just wanted to show off my serial killer knowledge lol

 

btw the wests live in the same town as i did (gloucester lol)

[Chickstick]

@longkiss: I didn't mean it literally.

 

@galvanize: You've obviously put a lot of thought into it. I'm not revealing anything yet...

[Vercetti21]

Holy sh*t, what an amazing chapter! I take back what I said about the last one - this is definitely your best chapter in my opinion.

 

There are no other characters besides our protagonist, but that does not mean that there is no character interaction at all (speaking of which, loved the twisted ending.) The way John describes Freeman's house as a rotting, weathered house in a bad area of a bad town - just leaves me speechless. Although we do not actually meet Freeman, it is obvious that the description of his residence mirrors his character, making John despise him even more.

 

On top of that, the way you have built suspense and the way you describe the overall uneasy feel John senses throughout the chapter is superb.

 

The boards creak underneath me as I make my way up. I imagine myself in a trashy horror film, looking behind me to see a guy with an axe ready to bury it into my head. As stupid as it seems, I get a little nervous. I wish I’d brought Gacy along with me.

 

The landing at the top of the stairs is as empty as the rooms below. So is every other room I check, apart from one, door closed tight, right at the end of the corridor. I sneak up to it and step on a loose floorboard. It sounds loud enough to wake the dead. I hold my breath and wait for an eternity. Nobody comes, and as I continue my slow passage down the corridor I slip my gun out and load it.

 

I slip my sweaty hand over the doorknob and count to ten. I click it round and push the door open quickly.

“Police! Don’t move!” I shout, parading my pistol to an empty room. The only sound is the wind bellowing outside, and what appears to be a mouse scurrying about in the walls. It seems I didn’t need to bring Gacy along after all.

What I love most about your writing is that you guide the reader in the story, but you let them explore it for themselves; something every good writer should do. For the sake of making things obvious, you give the reader a sense of freedom in the world you have created. For example, you do not plainly state that there is no one in the room, or what the room is lacking, but rather what little there is in the room: "bellowing wind" and "scurrying mouse", following through with porno magazines and dirty underwear. Although you make a slight mention that the room is empty, you do not emphasize it as the prime subject of the sentence, but instead follow through with amazing details like these to allow the reader to figure it out for themself.

 

I don't really know what else to say. I don't want to put down or insult anyone else by saying this, but you are, in my opinion, the most talented writer on these boards. Excellent description, excellent build-up of suspense, excellent character interaction (without characters!), and topped off with that trademark "Chickstick-style" tone of writing. On top of that, you've left the ending in a cliffhanger as always, and, as always, making me drool for more. What more could you ask for? Flawless writing, Chickstick, my man. Flawless.

Edited March 26, 2008 by Vercetti21

[Chickstick]

unlike killers such as john wanye gacy (pogo the clown)

And that, as you may have noticed, is who George Gacy is named after.

 

Thanks, Vercetti, thanks a lot. I'm happy to see you're obviously enjoying this so much.

[galvanize]

lol yeh i kinda guessed. I like this alot. It's refreshing to see stories on here that aren't all GTA Fanfics as there's only so many times you can write GTA 3- continued lol. This and 11th day are the only posts i subuscribe to lol

[Chickstick]

Fourteen: The Trunk

 

When I finally wake up it’s turned dark. My head hurts from the smack the guy in the empty room gave me with his pistol, and I attempt to move my hand up to feel how bad the damage is. I suddenly realise my hands are tied behind my back, and I open my mouth to shout out. I decide not to. The room (if it is a room) is small and stuffy, and the air seems to be going stale already. Better to keep my mouth shut and conserve air.

 

Out of nowhere, the “room” starts to shake, and a large bang seems to come out from below me. I appear to be in the trunk of a car. I keep as still as I can, lower my breathing and keep my ears open for any and all noises from the front of the car.

 

I hear a noise like somebody sneezing and a sound of a hand against flesh. A woman squeals. And then, muffled but unmistakably speech:

“sh*t! What the hell… why’d you do that?”

“You’re putting me off, you stupid bitch. The boss won’t be very happy if I’m pulled over with a cop in the back.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Another slap. The woman starts to cry.

“You bastard. You mean bastard.” She sobs.

“Jesus Christ! Shut the f*ck up! Do you want what happened to that cop’s broad to happen to you?”

She doesn’t reply.

 

The mention of Gwen tears it for me. Screw the air supply. I want to see who this bastard is.

I gasp in a big mouthful of air and shout, “Pull over, you f*ck! Now! I want to see who you are!”

Silence.

Then the guy asks, “Did you hear something then?”

The woman snivels and answers “No” quietly.

“I said pull over!”

The guy catches on and almost pleads, “Oh sh*t, no. He wasn’t supposed to wake up before I got him to the boss.”

The voice sounds familiar. I assumed it was Freeman in the house, but from what I remembered this doesn’t sound like him. This voice is old, tired. Who the hell is it?

 

“Vince, please. We’ve still got time to let him go. If we dump him by the side of the road now we can get out of the city before he catches on to us.”

 

Vince?

 

“No.” comes the reply, “No. We do this, we’re made for life.”

“We can’t kill a cop!”

“You have before. You just feel different about this one because you spent four years sucking him off.”

“Oh, Vince…”

 

Vince?

 

“Shut up. Just shut up. I can’t hear myself think.”

“Vince…”

“Kat, shut up!”

 

That’s why the voices sounded so familiar. Kat, what have you done?

 

“We take him to the boss,” Vince, the fat old pervert continues, “and then you’ll maybe finally stop going on about how you can’t kill a cop. Because you won’t be. Okay?”

A long pause (maybe thirty seconds or more) and then:

“Okay, Vince. Okay.”

 

I cheated on my future wife with some bitch who’s just agreed to let me be killed without any objections. I get a woozy feeling in my stomach and I vomit. I continue to vomit. And then, just for variety, I vomit some more.

[longkissgoodnight]

Awesome but quick question. You wrote " I suddenly realise my hands are tied behind my back". Didn't you mean to say " realized"?

[-/TNT\-]

Really good chapter. It's interesting, even though the character is locked up in a dark place throughout it.

[Chickstick]

 

Awesome but quick question. You wrote " I suddenly realise my hands are tied behind my back". Didn't you mean to say " realized"?

No. The entire story is in the present tense, why would I write one sentence using past tense?

Edited April 4, 2008 by Chickstick

[longkissgoodnight]

I don't no but its your choice because its your story.

[Vercetti21]

Brilliant. You tell the chapter in such a limited setting, but the story is still driven at the same pace and you've got the usual trademark cliffhanger in there as well. It's definitely interesting to see where the story is going, and where it has gone so far. Do you have a rough idea of how many chapters this will have yet? I'm curious to see if the story is coming to a close, or if the action is just starting.

[Chickstick]

Do you have a rough idea of how many chapters this will have yet? I'm curious to see if the story is coming to a close, or if the action is just starting.

We're currently about half way through. The later chapters will be much longer, though, so in terms of word count we're probably 30% or so of the way in.

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

[longkissgoodnight]

Hey Chickstick - is this story dead? Did you quit on it?

[Typhus]

Chickstick is going through some stuff in his personal life. So updates on his stories will be more sporadic from now on.

 

 

Unfortunately I won't be able to get on as much in the future, as a lot of sh*t has happened recently and, as I'm sure you understand, what is going on in my "real life" at the moment is more important than an internet forum.

 

I'll still be around, but not to the extent I was before. I'll try and read everything I can whenever I can, and of course, update BBB every so often.

Edited April 20, 2008 by Typhus

[Chickstick]

I'll probably update tomorrow night, or at least in the next two days. As Typhus said, I've got more important things on my mind right now.