MS Word lies. It tells me I edited the document for 11,412 minutes. That would have been 8 hours a day for the past 22 days straight. I must've left it open a time or two. Revision number 517 seems to be more meaningful to me. I'm guessing that's how many times I changed something and then saved it. But then again, I'm a compulsive saver.
51,407 words. 223,894 characters. 1085 paragraphs. 4151 sentences. 3.8 sentences per paragraph. 12.3 words per sentence. 4.1 characters per word. 3% passive sentences. Flesh reading ease 83.0. Flesh-Kincaid reading level 4.7.
As to what words I did use, there were 4,266 distinct words used in my writing. The most popular, not counting definite or indefinite articles, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, main character names, "said", or forms of "to be" or "to have" were: See/saw (297), car (175), looked (162), just (158), going (135), time (134), room (115) and right (114).
On the flip side, I had 1,988 words used only once, 663 words used only twice, 315 words used thrice, 215 words used four times and 153 words used five times each. That adds up to 5,884 words.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Done for November 2008
I'm calling it. 51,407 words in total, and the story has wrapped up. To be honest, I thought maybe I would have revealed more at the end, but it made sense to end it the way I did. I also thought that maybe I would be able to keep going once I got past 50,000, but truth be told, I am alright with where the story ended up. Give me some time off and maybe I will go back and edit it a bit. In the meantime, please read, and if you have any comments, leave them in the blog. Feedback is welcome.
Post 27
Peter understood that Gerald was no longer a threat to him. His rifle had no bullets in it and it was halfway across the yard from them, and right now, Gerald was lying on his back on the grass, about ten feet away from him. When Peter glanced over at him, he was hiding his head with his arms and rolling slightly back and forth.
Though Peter could feel every injury he sustained, he had but one thought: getting to Laura. He sprinted as fast as he could on unsteady legs across the yard, slowing down only as he got close to where she was lying in the grass. She hadn’t moved since last he was near her. He knelt by her side, almost choking on her name. He had to make an effort to be still, to see if Laura was still breathing. It took him longer than he would have though possible to calm himself down, between the physical and mental exertion of fighting against Gerald and the beating his body took at Gerald’s hands while he was disconnected from himself. He held his breath and prayed that she would be safe. He saw her chest rise and fall with a shallow breath, and finally exhaled sharply in relief. She was alive! She was still bleeding, and he didn’t know what to do next. He fumbled around for his cell phone and with shaking hands and dialed 9-1-1. It took him two tries to punch in those three digits correctly. When the operator answered, he told her, “My girlfriend’s been shot. She’s barely breathing.”
The 911 operator told him to calm down. She could hear the stress in his voice. “Where are you located?” she asked.
Peter rattled off Laura’s address, surprised that he remembered it. The last time he was aware of her address was the day he came over for the first time to cut their grass, the day all this started for him.
“I’m dispatching an ambulance right now,” the operator said. “Stay on the line with me.”
She went through the litany of questions, and walked Peter through applying pressure to where Laura was bleeding. After only a few minutes, Peter heard cars rolling up to the front of the house, sirens blaring. Around the corner of the house ran three police officers, weapons drawn. One of them stopped, holstered his weapon and talked with Peter, helping him with first aid, while the other two looked around the area, starting in the back yard. Peter could hear more sirens approaching.
One of the officers in the back yard called over to his partner. “He’s running! A guy just jumped over the fence!” Peter could tell the officer was running after him by the way his voice sounded. He didn’t lift his eyes away from Laura’s angelic face. For as much pain as she must be feeling, she looked completely peaceful. Peter heard the policemen clamoring over the back fence, yelling in the other direction. Their words were completely incomprehensible to him.
Paramedics arrived on scene, and Peter was pulled away from Laura while they began to work on her. He watched intently for signs that she was going to make it, but didn’t see any. The policeman that helped him with first aid allowed him to watch as the paramedics loaded her into the waiting ambulance, and then took him to the other ambulance and got him cleaned up as he talked with him about the incident. Another officer walked back from the house with the recovered rifle and magazine. That’s when Dan showed up, dressed in his police uniform.
Dan talked with the officers on the scene and convinced them to let Peter go with him to the hospital that Laura was being taken to. Peter had quite a few injuries to be tended as well, but none were life-threatening. They left before they got word on whether Gerald was caught or not. It wasn’t often that Peter got to ride in Dan’s police car. He wished the circumstances were better.
On the way to the hospital, Dan started in on his brother. “Why the hell were you at that house? Wasn’t the point of going to Uncle Jeff’s so that we wouldn’t be home?”
“Yeah, but...”
“But what? Seriously, that was probably the most impressive display of ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing’ that I’ve ever seen! You could’ve gotten yourself killed back there, and with any luck, Laura will make it through this. She didn’t look good at all. Not at all.” He was shaking his head.
“Can we just get there, please? I’m already worried enough. I don’t need you telling me she’s not going to live through it.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but damn it, Peter, you put yourself in that situation.”
“I know. I just hope they catch Gerald.”
They were quiet the rest of the way to the hospital. Dan translated the radio calls pertaining to Laura’s house for Peter. The gist of it was that they were unable to find Gerald. It was a residential area, and he could be anywhere. The officers on the scene found a little nest on the other side of the fence where he had been lying in wait for them. Under the camouflage he constructed, he would have been practically invisible to anyone but the closest observer.
They pulled into the emergency parking lot and walked in the automatic doors, up to the reception desk. The woman at the desk looked up at them. “How can I help you, officer?” she started, but when she saw Peter, she said, “Oh, my. What happened to you?”
Dan said, “We’re looking for a girl that was brought in by ambulance, Laura Sinclair.”
The woman nodded, and said, “They’ve taken her up to surgery already. You can go down this hall and around the corner to the elevators, up to the third floor, where there’s a waiting room and a monitor. Are you sure you don’t want this young man to be looked over while you’re waiting?”
Dan looked at Peter critically, trying to determine if he was acting in any way out of the ordinary. “If anything, he’s more normal now than he’d been recently. I think we’ll be okay for now.”
They went up to the waiting room as instructed and Dan talked with the nurses on that floor. After some verification, they gave him a code that he could use to watch the monitors for updates on her condition.
As they sat in the waiting room, Peter’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out, and the caller ID said, “Laura Sinclair.” Peter was mystified. Absently, he said, “How could Laura be calling me?” before answering it with a very tentative, “Hello?”
Dan reached for the phone, but it was already too late to keep him from answering it. He watched Peter’s face.
A familiar voice on the other end of the phone spoke very quietly. “Who is this?” the voice asked.
“What do you mean, who is this? You know damn well who this is, you son of a bitch.”
Dan was on his radio, but Peter tuned him out. He was listening for what Gerald would say next. “I really don’t know who you are. This is the last number dialed from this phone. I figured you could tell me why there’s a bunch of cops after me.”
“How could you possibly not know why you’re wanted by the police?” said Peter.
Dan reached over and held the wrist of the hand Peter had the cell phone in away from his head. “No matter what, keep him talking,” he said.
Peter was confused, but listened. Into the phone, he said, “Where are you?”
“I’m hiding out, waiting for them to leave. I don’t know what happened, but I feel like someone threw me out the back of a Humvee. Where am I?”
“You’re in Denver,” answered Peter. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Last thing? I was in some sort of firefight in Iraq. The convoy was ambushed and I was away from the vehicle, behind a building when a guy fell right next to me. I was staring into his eyes as he died, and then everything went black.”
“Hold on a second,” said Peter. He held the phone away from his head and covered the mouthpiece. He told Dan what Gerald said.
“Ask him to turn himself in. See if he does it.”
“Are you there?” he asked into the phone.
“Yeah,” said Gerald.
“I think the best thing for you to do would be to surrender to the police. If you don’t remember how you got from Iraq to Denver,” Peter started. Gerald interrupted him, though.
“I can’t surrender. They want to kill me! They’re going to take me to a torture room and start cutting off fingers! You don’t know what these guys are capable of!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Peter, his voice agitated.
“Hang on,” said Gerald. “I think I see my chance coming up. I’ll call you back.”
That was the last Peter ever heard of Gerald. Laura’s surgery lasted for four hours, and she pulled through. Surgeons removed two bullets from her, one from her leg and the other from her lung. Afterwards, she was in the hospital for eight days, where Peter visited her every day.
On the second day, she was awake as he entered the room.
“Hey! You’re awake,” he said as he entered.
“Hi, Peter.” Her voice sounded different somehow. “I’m glad to finally see you in person.” Peter didn’t know what to say as he walked over to her side. Laura continued, “Do you think maybe you can take me back?”
“Take you back, what do you mean?” asked Peter, standing by the bed.
Laura reached out her hand to him. As he looked at it, he noticed that Laura had the same kind of aura that he had seen before, on Gerald and on himself. It was more pronounced in the hand she was reaching to him. He took her hand and felt the surge of energy rush through him, the way it had at the hotel. After a few seconds, he recognized what happened. Leanne returned to him. He didn’t know how that was possible!
When Peter looked into Laura’s eyes now, they looked more like what he was familiar with seeing there. She gazed at him lovingly, still holding his hand. “I am so glad to see you,” she said. “Please tell Leanne thanks for saving my life. She convinced me to stay around for you when you were holding me, after I was shot in the back. She helped me to hold on.” Laura had tears rolling down her cheeks. “And I missed you so much.”
Though Peter could feel every injury he sustained, he had but one thought: getting to Laura. He sprinted as fast as he could on unsteady legs across the yard, slowing down only as he got close to where she was lying in the grass. She hadn’t moved since last he was near her. He knelt by her side, almost choking on her name. He had to make an effort to be still, to see if Laura was still breathing. It took him longer than he would have though possible to calm himself down, between the physical and mental exertion of fighting against Gerald and the beating his body took at Gerald’s hands while he was disconnected from himself. He held his breath and prayed that she would be safe. He saw her chest rise and fall with a shallow breath, and finally exhaled sharply in relief. She was alive! She was still bleeding, and he didn’t know what to do next. He fumbled around for his cell phone and with shaking hands and dialed 9-1-1. It took him two tries to punch in those three digits correctly. When the operator answered, he told her, “My girlfriend’s been shot. She’s barely breathing.”
The 911 operator told him to calm down. She could hear the stress in his voice. “Where are you located?” she asked.
Peter rattled off Laura’s address, surprised that he remembered it. The last time he was aware of her address was the day he came over for the first time to cut their grass, the day all this started for him.
“I’m dispatching an ambulance right now,” the operator said. “Stay on the line with me.”
She went through the litany of questions, and walked Peter through applying pressure to where Laura was bleeding. After only a few minutes, Peter heard cars rolling up to the front of the house, sirens blaring. Around the corner of the house ran three police officers, weapons drawn. One of them stopped, holstered his weapon and talked with Peter, helping him with first aid, while the other two looked around the area, starting in the back yard. Peter could hear more sirens approaching.
One of the officers in the back yard called over to his partner. “He’s running! A guy just jumped over the fence!” Peter could tell the officer was running after him by the way his voice sounded. He didn’t lift his eyes away from Laura’s angelic face. For as much pain as she must be feeling, she looked completely peaceful. Peter heard the policemen clamoring over the back fence, yelling in the other direction. Their words were completely incomprehensible to him.
Paramedics arrived on scene, and Peter was pulled away from Laura while they began to work on her. He watched intently for signs that she was going to make it, but didn’t see any. The policeman that helped him with first aid allowed him to watch as the paramedics loaded her into the waiting ambulance, and then took him to the other ambulance and got him cleaned up as he talked with him about the incident. Another officer walked back from the house with the recovered rifle and magazine. That’s when Dan showed up, dressed in his police uniform.
Dan talked with the officers on the scene and convinced them to let Peter go with him to the hospital that Laura was being taken to. Peter had quite a few injuries to be tended as well, but none were life-threatening. They left before they got word on whether Gerald was caught or not. It wasn’t often that Peter got to ride in Dan’s police car. He wished the circumstances were better.
On the way to the hospital, Dan started in on his brother. “Why the hell were you at that house? Wasn’t the point of going to Uncle Jeff’s so that we wouldn’t be home?”
“Yeah, but...”
“But what? Seriously, that was probably the most impressive display of ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing’ that I’ve ever seen! You could’ve gotten yourself killed back there, and with any luck, Laura will make it through this. She didn’t look good at all. Not at all.” He was shaking his head.
“Can we just get there, please? I’m already worried enough. I don’t need you telling me she’s not going to live through it.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, but damn it, Peter, you put yourself in that situation.”
“I know. I just hope they catch Gerald.”
They were quiet the rest of the way to the hospital. Dan translated the radio calls pertaining to Laura’s house for Peter. The gist of it was that they were unable to find Gerald. It was a residential area, and he could be anywhere. The officers on the scene found a little nest on the other side of the fence where he had been lying in wait for them. Under the camouflage he constructed, he would have been practically invisible to anyone but the closest observer.
They pulled into the emergency parking lot and walked in the automatic doors, up to the reception desk. The woman at the desk looked up at them. “How can I help you, officer?” she started, but when she saw Peter, she said, “Oh, my. What happened to you?”
Dan said, “We’re looking for a girl that was brought in by ambulance, Laura Sinclair.”
The woman nodded, and said, “They’ve taken her up to surgery already. You can go down this hall and around the corner to the elevators, up to the third floor, where there’s a waiting room and a monitor. Are you sure you don’t want this young man to be looked over while you’re waiting?”
Dan looked at Peter critically, trying to determine if he was acting in any way out of the ordinary. “If anything, he’s more normal now than he’d been recently. I think we’ll be okay for now.”
They went up to the waiting room as instructed and Dan talked with the nurses on that floor. After some verification, they gave him a code that he could use to watch the monitors for updates on her condition.
As they sat in the waiting room, Peter’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out, and the caller ID said, “Laura Sinclair.” Peter was mystified. Absently, he said, “How could Laura be calling me?” before answering it with a very tentative, “Hello?”
Dan reached for the phone, but it was already too late to keep him from answering it. He watched Peter’s face.
A familiar voice on the other end of the phone spoke very quietly. “Who is this?” the voice asked.
“What do you mean, who is this? You know damn well who this is, you son of a bitch.”
Dan was on his radio, but Peter tuned him out. He was listening for what Gerald would say next. “I really don’t know who you are. This is the last number dialed from this phone. I figured you could tell me why there’s a bunch of cops after me.”
“How could you possibly not know why you’re wanted by the police?” said Peter.
Dan reached over and held the wrist of the hand Peter had the cell phone in away from his head. “No matter what, keep him talking,” he said.
Peter was confused, but listened. Into the phone, he said, “Where are you?”
“I’m hiding out, waiting for them to leave. I don’t know what happened, but I feel like someone threw me out the back of a Humvee. Where am I?”
“You’re in Denver,” answered Peter. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Last thing? I was in some sort of firefight in Iraq. The convoy was ambushed and I was away from the vehicle, behind a building when a guy fell right next to me. I was staring into his eyes as he died, and then everything went black.”
“Hold on a second,” said Peter. He held the phone away from his head and covered the mouthpiece. He told Dan what Gerald said.
“Ask him to turn himself in. See if he does it.”
“Are you there?” he asked into the phone.
“Yeah,” said Gerald.
“I think the best thing for you to do would be to surrender to the police. If you don’t remember how you got from Iraq to Denver,” Peter started. Gerald interrupted him, though.
“I can’t surrender. They want to kill me! They’re going to take me to a torture room and start cutting off fingers! You don’t know what these guys are capable of!”
“What are you talking about?” asked Peter, his voice agitated.
“Hang on,” said Gerald. “I think I see my chance coming up. I’ll call you back.”
That was the last Peter ever heard of Gerald. Laura’s surgery lasted for four hours, and she pulled through. Surgeons removed two bullets from her, one from her leg and the other from her lung. Afterwards, she was in the hospital for eight days, where Peter visited her every day.
On the second day, she was awake as he entered the room.
“Hey! You’re awake,” he said as he entered.
“Hi, Peter.” Her voice sounded different somehow. “I’m glad to finally see you in person.” Peter didn’t know what to say as he walked over to her side. Laura continued, “Do you think maybe you can take me back?”
“Take you back, what do you mean?” asked Peter, standing by the bed.
Laura reached out her hand to him. As he looked at it, he noticed that Laura had the same kind of aura that he had seen before, on Gerald and on himself. It was more pronounced in the hand she was reaching to him. He took her hand and felt the surge of energy rush through him, the way it had at the hotel. After a few seconds, he recognized what happened. Leanne returned to him. He didn’t know how that was possible!
When Peter looked into Laura’s eyes now, they looked more like what he was familiar with seeing there. She gazed at him lovingly, still holding his hand. “I am so glad to see you,” she said. “Please tell Leanne thanks for saving my life. She convinced me to stay around for you when you were holding me, after I was shot in the back. She helped me to hold on.” Laura had tears rolling down her cheeks. “And I missed you so much.”
Friday, November 21, 2008
What I have, what I need
I have my climactic scene written (post 26), and am moving towards denouement. I know several of the things I want to cover in the denouement. The trouble is, I haven't quite decided the full transition from where I am to start that process. I don't want to challenge the suspension of disbelief (I'm not sure how valid that concern is given that my story deals with dead spirits being bound to living people), so I want to tread carefully here. I also don't want things to slip through the cracks, like my ill-fated liquor store robbery story arc. Now there's a couple hundred words I owe. Given that I'm only 400 words away from the 50,000 goal, I don't think there's much risk of not making up for that. I should even have some time to go back and adjust that part of the story to remove the text about it. I'll post it here when I do it, even if it will appear out of order.
I'm actually quite surprised that what I wrote here largely falls right in order of how it appears in my document. The only thing I wrote out-of-order is Post 1. I wrote Post 2 first, then post 1, but they made more sense in the order they are posted. They were largely written on the same day.
The final reason I'm posting this is so that the first words of Post 26 aren't the first thing on the blog, since they give something away for people who aren't caught up reading here. Not that I expect there are a lot of people reading this blog, but there are a couple.
I'm actually quite surprised that what I wrote here largely falls right in order of how it appears in my document. The only thing I wrote out-of-order is Post 1. I wrote Post 2 first, then post 1, but they made more sense in the order they are posted. They were largely written on the same day.
The final reason I'm posting this is so that the first words of Post 26 aren't the first thing on the blog, since they give something away for people who aren't caught up reading here. Not that I expect there are a lot of people reading this blog, but there are a couple.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Post 26
“Wait, was that a gunshot?” asked Peter. Laura was lying on the ground holding her right thigh with a pained expression on her face. Peter was scanning the area, but looked at her more closely when she didn’t answer his question, and she wasn’t making eye contact with him. She rolled towards him and he saw blood covering the side of her leg. “Laura! What the hell happened?”
Peter then looked beyond Laura and on to the fence as he shifted into a position to help Laura. At the fence line, he could see a dark shadow, down at the base of the fence, just on the far side of the big tree. Peter sprang into action, grabbing Laura by her wrists and pulling her to the side, putting the tree between them and whoever was causing the shadow. He then tried frantically to help her to her feet and at first she wasn’t cooperating. “Come on!” Peter cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!” She held her leg gingerly and pulled against Peter’s hands while trying to put her uninjured leg underneath her. She gritted her teeth and allowed Peter to help her up. He put her arm over his shoulders and helped support her weight, hoping that it would hurry them along.
They turned towards the house and began running. The vast expanse of green grass between them and the gate was intimidating, and any move they made directly towards the house would expose them to Gerald – it had to be Gerald. Instead of running directly towards the house, they ran towards the fence separating the Sinclair’s property from their neighbors, hoping to stay in the relative safety provided by the tree that stood between them.
Pa-pop! Another bullet hurled past them and broke a plank in the wooden fence ahead of them, just to their right. Gerald had moved! Peter risked turning and looking back as he carried Laura along, and he saw Gerald climbing the fence. He was covered in leaves and twigs sticking out at crazy angles from his clothing. He had donned camouflage and lay in wait for them to come to the house, and now he was coming after them! As Peter watched, he saw Gerald land and roll on their side of the fence. He came up and was kneeling to the side of the tree, looking at them as Peter turned away to run full-out towards the gate. It was still so far away, but they had to try.
Running as fast as he could with some of Laura’s weight on his shoulders, he tripped over her feet. They fell to the side, but recovered and kept running, fearful that at any moment, he could end up like the man in the visions he saw – shot in the head, killed instantly.
“Stop running away, you coward. Be part of me and taste real power!” yelled Gerald as he raised the rifle again.
Peter felt a sideways push from Laura, and they both went sprawling to the side as another bullet flew past them. It smacked against the side of the house, splintering the siding. Peter and Laura were barely able to recover from that. Adrenaline alone got Laura back on her feet. Peter got up next to her, and they began running again, though separately. Peter reached the gate first and opened it. He looked back for Laura, who was moving much more slowly than he was. Beyond Laura, he saw Gerald taking aim, but having trouble with the rifle, like it was resisting his will and aiming away. Peter took a step towards Laura, willing her forward faster. Gerald fought off whatever was trying to interfere with his attack, and leveled the rifle at Laura again.
Pop!
Laura ran forward a couple more steps and collapsed against Peter. He put his arms around her and felt wetness at her back. He drew his hand away and it was covered in blood! He looked into her eyes. She was staring back with a desperate look. She was almost beyond pain now. Her arms reached up and held his shoulders, and she began sinking down.
When her knees touched the ground, he told her, “Don’t stop now. We’re almost there!” He could sense Gerald running up to them and was beside himself trying to get her to keep running with him. He bent over and reached under her arms, grasping her back. His chest touched against hers as he pulled her upwards, and his head was beside hers. She began sobbing, fearful of death. Peter took a half-step forward for better leverage, and pulled up against her.
He was able to get her legs underneath her again, and she stood unsteadily, leaning against him. By the time she was standing, Peter looked past her and saw that Gerald was almost on top of them. He stopped running, and his rifle was at his side. When he got within ten feet of them, he grinned sadistically and threw the rifle to the side. “Looks like I’m not going to need that to finish off both of you.” His aura was utterly glowing, not only alive in motion, but alive with colors. Peter wondered if his mind were playing tricks on him, playing off Sam’s words from the restaurant about the colors in his aura, but he was certain that was what he was seeing. A cloud of spectral energy surrounded Gerald.
“Stay with me,” he whispered to Laura as his hand covered the wound in her back. He willed her to hold herself together long enough for help to come or for some miracle, and eased her tenderly, lovingly back down to the ground. When she was lying down, Peter turned towards Gerald again.
“Are you done having your little moment, boy?” Gerald’s voice was dripping with contempt. He assumed a fighter’s stance and taunted Peter towards him with waves of his hand. “I bet you don’t even get close to me.”
“I’ll do more than that, you bastard.”
Peter could barely contain his rage. Gerald knew this, and tried to throw him off his guard. “I forgot to thank you, by the way.”
Peter was perplexed. “What for?”
“The squirrel, of course. I had no idea that animals had so much energy in them! I mean, they hurt like hell going in, but once you get used to them, they’re not half bad.” Peter understood now why Gerald’s aura was so different now. He has taken many lives, and fed off the energy left behind. So that was why Gerald sent him the dead cat. “And you know what else?” Gerald began bouncing around like a prizefighter in the ring. “They put me back together nicely! This is the best I’ve felt since I took that shrapnel in Iraq.”
Peter had had enough. Even though he had no training or combat experience apart from the recent scuffle, he charged at Gerald, intent on strangling him to death with his bare hands. Gerald deftly turned him aside, causing Peter’s momentum to carry him flailing forward into the grass face-first.
“You’re going to have to do much better than that, boy. The greenest soldier could kick your ass, and I’m a motherfucking combat veteran.”
Peter stood up again. In his field of vision were both Gerald and Laura. Laura was not moving. Gerald was moving too much for his tastes. He needed a weapon. His eyes were drawn to the rifle lying discarded in the grass near the fence, but Gerald caught his glance. He side-stepped nimbly to the rifle and picked it up quickly. While he held the rifle, Peter’s fear outweighed his anger for a moment.
“This isn’t going to help you, boy. But I’m not going to shoot you with it, either.” He pressed the release button and dropped the magazine out of the weapon, then jerked the charging handle back and cleared the last round out of the chamber. It went spinning through the air and landed somewhere in the grass between them. Gerald then threw the weapon into the middle of the back yard. The suddenness of the throw caused Peter to duck first, and then retreat from Gerald a few steps. Gerald stepped towards him, closing the space between them. Peter finally realized what else was different about him. He wasn’t limping around at all. He seemed to be completely healthy now.
“Come on, boy. Don’t just stand there. Do something before your little whore dies. I need to be there when that happens so she can join me.” He thumped his chest to emphasize the joining. Peter looked at Laura again. She still hadn’t moved from where he lay her down. He felt like he had one shot at this. He turned and ran away from Gerald.
“You little coward, come back here!” Gerald called after him as he gave chase.
Peter was headed towards the tree. As he ran, he was afraid it wasn’t going to work. He was convinced that it wasn’t going to work. He felt helpless. The fence around him made him claustrophobic. He was trapped in a corner, and there really was nowhere to run. As he neared the tree, he slowed, knowing that Gerald was right behind him. He abruptly changed direction to his right, wishing he were wearing his baseball cleats. Gerald slowed down at his sudden change of direction, seemingly amused at what Peter was doing. “Oh, you want to play, do you?” Gerald asked.
Peter turned again, and now was running headlong at Gerald. Gerald got back into his fighting stance, but Peter wasn’t interested in fighting him. He also wasn’t going to let Gerald turn him aside again. He opened his arms wide and tackled Gerald around his beltline, driving his shoulder into the larger man’s gut. The two men crashed to the ground, Peter on top. “Close enough,” Peter thought to himself. “It had to be.”
Gerald began punching Peter in the back, which was about all that he could reach. Peter’s head was sheltered away from Gerald by Gerald’s own body. Peter was able to ignore the blows, but was surprised when Gerald once again gained the upper hand and ended up on top of Peter. He was definitely much stronger. Peter did all he could to roll over and face his assailant. After several punches in his back and now, some in his head, he was able to do just that. With all the strength he could marshal, he sat up and grabbed Gerald’s shirt. He reached out not only with his arms, but with his mind and spirit as well.
He connected.
The world around him went black, even though is eyes were open. Instantly, he saw an amazing collection of energies and faces, men and women, all imprisoned behind a barely-visible dark light. He began reaching into their cages, connecting with as many of them as he could, and pulling against their bonds. He could feel them slipping through, one by one. As they emerged from the shadowy light, their radiance was gleaming in the overwhelming dark, their form silhouetted neatly as they floated freely around Peter.
He reached all he could, and the darkness became more and more brilliant, filling every corner of his vision. He was disoriented by it all, until he saw a familiar spot. Was it up? Was it down? He had no way of knowing. He reached out for it, and the kaleidoscope of energy whirled all around him, channeling through him and into the spot to which he connected them. One by one, the colors fell through and left behind a dimmer realm. When all the glowing specters had gone, Peter found himself alone in a dark place. The only thing keeping him aware of movement around him was his connection to the familiar spot through which the color had gone. There was another presence here, a malevolent, brooding presence that had no desire to follow him through to the outside world, a sinister evil that wanted nothing more than to keep Peter in this place forever more.
Peter felt a sudden pulling, a rending of the connection he was bonded to. Whatever was here, it did not want Peter to leave the way he came. It made him hold on all that much more to the bond, focusing all his attention on maintaining that way out for himself. The attacks against him were fierce, but he was able to withstand them until finally, with determination, he turned again towards the center of where he felt this malevolent energy was coming from. Though he didn’t have arms in this place, the analogy to his mind was of holding the exit with one hand and reaching out to the malevolence with the other. His touch was all it took to connect the two together.
As the malevolence was being forced through the bonded site, Peter could feel a tearing at him. It was trying to cut him off before he could get out himself. It nearly worked. The hold that Peter still had on the site was weak. The last sliver of the malevolence went through the site, tearing at it the whole way. Peter hadn’t considered what may happen if the site were suddenly no longer there. He risked checking his surroundings for something – anything else – that might provide a means out should he need it, but there was none. There was only cruel, cold darkness.
He redoubled his focus on the site and pulled himself back from the brink through it, leaving only the nothingness behind.
His eyes could see again. Gerald was still on top of him, his shirt still in his hands. Behind Gerald, Peter saw the house, felt the sun on his head, and the grass beneath him. He also felt the myriad of bruises, scrapes and cuts left on him from Gerald’s beating. Everything hurt, from moving to breathing to just sitting still. It was almost overwhelming how much he felt here, after having been completely disconnected from his physical being.
But things had changed. Gerald no longer had an aura the he could see. Neither did he, he noticed, looking at his hands as they released the shirt from their grasp. Looking up at his face, though, he was baffled by Gerald’s expression. He wasn’t angry or malicious. He was actually frightened and nervous, as though Peter were going to kill him. Peter pulled his hands back so as to not threaten Gerald, and Gerald crab-walked backwards away from Peter, looking disoriented.
Peter then looked beyond Laura and on to the fence as he shifted into a position to help Laura. At the fence line, he could see a dark shadow, down at the base of the fence, just on the far side of the big tree. Peter sprang into action, grabbing Laura by her wrists and pulling her to the side, putting the tree between them and whoever was causing the shadow. He then tried frantically to help her to her feet and at first she wasn’t cooperating. “Come on!” Peter cried. “We’ve got to get out of here!” She held her leg gingerly and pulled against Peter’s hands while trying to put her uninjured leg underneath her. She gritted her teeth and allowed Peter to help her up. He put her arm over his shoulders and helped support her weight, hoping that it would hurry them along.
They turned towards the house and began running. The vast expanse of green grass between them and the gate was intimidating, and any move they made directly towards the house would expose them to Gerald – it had to be Gerald. Instead of running directly towards the house, they ran towards the fence separating the Sinclair’s property from their neighbors, hoping to stay in the relative safety provided by the tree that stood between them.
Pa-pop! Another bullet hurled past them and broke a plank in the wooden fence ahead of them, just to their right. Gerald had moved! Peter risked turning and looking back as he carried Laura along, and he saw Gerald climbing the fence. He was covered in leaves and twigs sticking out at crazy angles from his clothing. He had donned camouflage and lay in wait for them to come to the house, and now he was coming after them! As Peter watched, he saw Gerald land and roll on their side of the fence. He came up and was kneeling to the side of the tree, looking at them as Peter turned away to run full-out towards the gate. It was still so far away, but they had to try.
Running as fast as he could with some of Laura’s weight on his shoulders, he tripped over her feet. They fell to the side, but recovered and kept running, fearful that at any moment, he could end up like the man in the visions he saw – shot in the head, killed instantly.
“Stop running away, you coward. Be part of me and taste real power!” yelled Gerald as he raised the rifle again.
Peter felt a sideways push from Laura, and they both went sprawling to the side as another bullet flew past them. It smacked against the side of the house, splintering the siding. Peter and Laura were barely able to recover from that. Adrenaline alone got Laura back on her feet. Peter got up next to her, and they began running again, though separately. Peter reached the gate first and opened it. He looked back for Laura, who was moving much more slowly than he was. Beyond Laura, he saw Gerald taking aim, but having trouble with the rifle, like it was resisting his will and aiming away. Peter took a step towards Laura, willing her forward faster. Gerald fought off whatever was trying to interfere with his attack, and leveled the rifle at Laura again.
Pop!
Laura ran forward a couple more steps and collapsed against Peter. He put his arms around her and felt wetness at her back. He drew his hand away and it was covered in blood! He looked into her eyes. She was staring back with a desperate look. She was almost beyond pain now. Her arms reached up and held his shoulders, and she began sinking down.
When her knees touched the ground, he told her, “Don’t stop now. We’re almost there!” He could sense Gerald running up to them and was beside himself trying to get her to keep running with him. He bent over and reached under her arms, grasping her back. His chest touched against hers as he pulled her upwards, and his head was beside hers. She began sobbing, fearful of death. Peter took a half-step forward for better leverage, and pulled up against her.
He was able to get her legs underneath her again, and she stood unsteadily, leaning against him. By the time she was standing, Peter looked past her and saw that Gerald was almost on top of them. He stopped running, and his rifle was at his side. When he got within ten feet of them, he grinned sadistically and threw the rifle to the side. “Looks like I’m not going to need that to finish off both of you.” His aura was utterly glowing, not only alive in motion, but alive with colors. Peter wondered if his mind were playing tricks on him, playing off Sam’s words from the restaurant about the colors in his aura, but he was certain that was what he was seeing. A cloud of spectral energy surrounded Gerald.
“Stay with me,” he whispered to Laura as his hand covered the wound in her back. He willed her to hold herself together long enough for help to come or for some miracle, and eased her tenderly, lovingly back down to the ground. When she was lying down, Peter turned towards Gerald again.
“Are you done having your little moment, boy?” Gerald’s voice was dripping with contempt. He assumed a fighter’s stance and taunted Peter towards him with waves of his hand. “I bet you don’t even get close to me.”
“I’ll do more than that, you bastard.”
Peter could barely contain his rage. Gerald knew this, and tried to throw him off his guard. “I forgot to thank you, by the way.”
Peter was perplexed. “What for?”
“The squirrel, of course. I had no idea that animals had so much energy in them! I mean, they hurt like hell going in, but once you get used to them, they’re not half bad.” Peter understood now why Gerald’s aura was so different now. He has taken many lives, and fed off the energy left behind. So that was why Gerald sent him the dead cat. “And you know what else?” Gerald began bouncing around like a prizefighter in the ring. “They put me back together nicely! This is the best I’ve felt since I took that shrapnel in Iraq.”
Peter had had enough. Even though he had no training or combat experience apart from the recent scuffle, he charged at Gerald, intent on strangling him to death with his bare hands. Gerald deftly turned him aside, causing Peter’s momentum to carry him flailing forward into the grass face-first.
“You’re going to have to do much better than that, boy. The greenest soldier could kick your ass, and I’m a motherfucking combat veteran.”
Peter stood up again. In his field of vision were both Gerald and Laura. Laura was not moving. Gerald was moving too much for his tastes. He needed a weapon. His eyes were drawn to the rifle lying discarded in the grass near the fence, but Gerald caught his glance. He side-stepped nimbly to the rifle and picked it up quickly. While he held the rifle, Peter’s fear outweighed his anger for a moment.
“This isn’t going to help you, boy. But I’m not going to shoot you with it, either.” He pressed the release button and dropped the magazine out of the weapon, then jerked the charging handle back and cleared the last round out of the chamber. It went spinning through the air and landed somewhere in the grass between them. Gerald then threw the weapon into the middle of the back yard. The suddenness of the throw caused Peter to duck first, and then retreat from Gerald a few steps. Gerald stepped towards him, closing the space between them. Peter finally realized what else was different about him. He wasn’t limping around at all. He seemed to be completely healthy now.
“Come on, boy. Don’t just stand there. Do something before your little whore dies. I need to be there when that happens so she can join me.” He thumped his chest to emphasize the joining. Peter looked at Laura again. She still hadn’t moved from where he lay her down. He felt like he had one shot at this. He turned and ran away from Gerald.
“You little coward, come back here!” Gerald called after him as he gave chase.
Peter was headed towards the tree. As he ran, he was afraid it wasn’t going to work. He was convinced that it wasn’t going to work. He felt helpless. The fence around him made him claustrophobic. He was trapped in a corner, and there really was nowhere to run. As he neared the tree, he slowed, knowing that Gerald was right behind him. He abruptly changed direction to his right, wishing he were wearing his baseball cleats. Gerald slowed down at his sudden change of direction, seemingly amused at what Peter was doing. “Oh, you want to play, do you?” Gerald asked.
Peter turned again, and now was running headlong at Gerald. Gerald got back into his fighting stance, but Peter wasn’t interested in fighting him. He also wasn’t going to let Gerald turn him aside again. He opened his arms wide and tackled Gerald around his beltline, driving his shoulder into the larger man’s gut. The two men crashed to the ground, Peter on top. “Close enough,” Peter thought to himself. “It had to be.”
Gerald began punching Peter in the back, which was about all that he could reach. Peter’s head was sheltered away from Gerald by Gerald’s own body. Peter was able to ignore the blows, but was surprised when Gerald once again gained the upper hand and ended up on top of Peter. He was definitely much stronger. Peter did all he could to roll over and face his assailant. After several punches in his back and now, some in his head, he was able to do just that. With all the strength he could marshal, he sat up and grabbed Gerald’s shirt. He reached out not only with his arms, but with his mind and spirit as well.
He connected.
The world around him went black, even though is eyes were open. Instantly, he saw an amazing collection of energies and faces, men and women, all imprisoned behind a barely-visible dark light. He began reaching into their cages, connecting with as many of them as he could, and pulling against their bonds. He could feel them slipping through, one by one. As they emerged from the shadowy light, their radiance was gleaming in the overwhelming dark, their form silhouetted neatly as they floated freely around Peter.
He reached all he could, and the darkness became more and more brilliant, filling every corner of his vision. He was disoriented by it all, until he saw a familiar spot. Was it up? Was it down? He had no way of knowing. He reached out for it, and the kaleidoscope of energy whirled all around him, channeling through him and into the spot to which he connected them. One by one, the colors fell through and left behind a dimmer realm. When all the glowing specters had gone, Peter found himself alone in a dark place. The only thing keeping him aware of movement around him was his connection to the familiar spot through which the color had gone. There was another presence here, a malevolent, brooding presence that had no desire to follow him through to the outside world, a sinister evil that wanted nothing more than to keep Peter in this place forever more.
Peter felt a sudden pulling, a rending of the connection he was bonded to. Whatever was here, it did not want Peter to leave the way he came. It made him hold on all that much more to the bond, focusing all his attention on maintaining that way out for himself. The attacks against him were fierce, but he was able to withstand them until finally, with determination, he turned again towards the center of where he felt this malevolent energy was coming from. Though he didn’t have arms in this place, the analogy to his mind was of holding the exit with one hand and reaching out to the malevolence with the other. His touch was all it took to connect the two together.
As the malevolence was being forced through the bonded site, Peter could feel a tearing at him. It was trying to cut him off before he could get out himself. It nearly worked. The hold that Peter still had on the site was weak. The last sliver of the malevolence went through the site, tearing at it the whole way. Peter hadn’t considered what may happen if the site were suddenly no longer there. He risked checking his surroundings for something – anything else – that might provide a means out should he need it, but there was none. There was only cruel, cold darkness.
He redoubled his focus on the site and pulled himself back from the brink through it, leaving only the nothingness behind.
His eyes could see again. Gerald was still on top of him, his shirt still in his hands. Behind Gerald, Peter saw the house, felt the sun on his head, and the grass beneath him. He also felt the myriad of bruises, scrapes and cuts left on him from Gerald’s beating. Everything hurt, from moving to breathing to just sitting still. It was almost overwhelming how much he felt here, after having been completely disconnected from his physical being.
But things had changed. Gerald no longer had an aura the he could see. Neither did he, he noticed, looking at his hands as they released the shirt from their grasp. Looking up at his face, though, he was baffled by Gerald’s expression. He wasn’t angry or malicious. He was actually frightened and nervous, as though Peter were going to kill him. Peter pulled his hands back so as to not threaten Gerald, and Gerald crab-walked backwards away from Peter, looking disoriented.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
So close to 50k
Boy, oh boy, when I look at my meter and see how close the bar is getting to that magical 50,000 word mark, I do have an urge to keep writing. But my fingers will thank me later. Won't they?
Decision time
I deliberately stopped writing at a point where I had to make a fairly critical decision for the rest of the story. I really don't know which way I want it to go. It felt pretty good today, though. I am hopeful that the rest of my sessions go as well. My outline is still current, so at least there's that.
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