Repercussions (Trouble Part 9)

My phone rang, it was a name I hadn’t heard in quite some time, I answered happily, since Madeline had been one of my least boring customers: “Hey, Madeline, how’s it going? I didn’t...”

“Sarah’s dead... they... someone... She’s dead...”

“Calm down, how did she... tell me what happened?”

“I was coming home after getting something at the grocery store, the cops say there was a break in, she was shot. I... since I left my husband, I didn’t know who to call... Your phone number was the only one I could think of.”

It had been about six months since that day. I’d found evidence that her husband wasn’t even a real person. He hadn’t gotten a name change like I’d first suspected, Albert R. Thompson was a fake identity, created entirely. I still remember her shock that day.

“What do you mean, you quit? What the hell am I paying you for?” she shouted.

“You paid me to figure out everything your husband owns, the problem is, the man you married is simply a piece of paper. Even his marriage to you is a fabrication, if I keep poking around I’ll have evidence that Albert doesn’t exist, and only Frank is real, and Frank has not been married to you.”

After more discussion, she finally understood that she’d been played for a long time. She was angry, but she was also cornered. We decided it would be wiser for her to simply pack up and leave, looking deeper into this would be like poking a bee’s nest. I would simply contact the cops with my info anonymously, if I could point them in the right direction, the guys in blue can be quite useful. I still remember Madeline’s last visit here, I decided to give her a break since she wasn’t getting anything out of the divorce, and well, I had been abusing the expense account.

“I’m settled in with Sarah, thank you for your help, here’s the check for your fees. Thank you for the price, I feel I should be paying you more.”

“Well, I figure I failed at m y job. I couldn’t find anything that you could get out of this separation. I didn’t expect this to end this way.”
“Me neither, but I guess if I can’t get anything out of the divorce, I can get a good story out of your case. Thank you for the copy of your case notes, I think the juicier parts may come in handy when I feel like writing another novel. Well then, I guess this is goodbye.”

“Yeah, it’s probably for the best. Good luck with everything Madeline.”

“Thank you, and goodbye Phil, maybe I’ll call you again when I need a reality check with next novel.”

I smiled as she walked out of my office. That was five months ago. The police had started poking where I’d pointed them, and somehow Albert R. Thompson stopped existing. Then the investigation stopped. It was suspicious, but then again when they say “stopped” in the news they might just mean that details are no longer being shared. Madeline’s voice brought me back to the present.

“What should I do, I can’t go back in, I have nowhere to go.”

“Well, as superficial as it’s going to sound, I’d say first you should try to replace whatever they stole that you need for a daily life. Buy some clothes, and go rent a hotel room for a few days. Your apartment will be inaccessible during the investigation, and who knows what they took in the home invasion.”

“They didn’t take anything, I just can’t go in because the body... oh my god, Sarah...” Madeline broke into tears at this point. On the other hand I got this nasty feeling in my gut, something didn’t add up. Someone knocked at the door.

“Look, Maddy, I have to go. Here what you are going to do, go and withdraw all the money you can from your bank account, and then stop using any of your accounts and credit cards. There’s someone at the door here, I have to go, just go get the money, then go to the hotel on the corner of fifth and Bank, register under the name Leslie Johnson, I’ll contact you there.”

The knock at the door got insistent. Funny, I was sure I had left the door unlocked. As I was walking towards the door, I realized what they may have been after in that robbery: my case notes. I was almost at the door when I saw that it wasn’t locked, I got that nasty feeling in my stomach and dove for cover less than a second before the sound of a gun being fired shook my office.

[So, here it is, the long awaited continuation of the "Trouble" story. I figured that since we'd all been away from the story for a while, it would be only fair to have Phil be away from the story as well. Also, yes, he has a name now. The unnamed protagonist was getting old. I can't promise I will be regular in updating, I wish I could be but inspiration has been hard to come by, I've had this direction for the story in mind since last June, but I couldn't get it to stick on paper. Oh well, hope you can all forgive me.]

Forgive me readers for I have sinned.

It has been way too long since I last wrote anything here. To be honest, it feels like something broke inside me back in May. I've been in a bit of a downward spiral ever since. I was sure I had hit rock bottom back in August, but nothing is working out for me lately. I have a hard time focusing on something for more than 5 minutes, unless I can shut my brain down. It feels like my whole brain is paralyzed by writer's block. In fact, not to sound too emo-ish, but I am at a point in my life where pretty much everything I try to do is stopped by white page anxiety. Even when I logged on today, after closing the page every morning in utter disgust at my inability to write for the past 6 months, I figured I'd try to throw out some writing. I'm sure some of you still want to see what happened to that detective guy. I hate that I have this character inside of me and I can't let him out. Rest assured, this blog is not forgotten, it's just impossible for me to create right now. I'll try however to get the juices flowing simply by writing out my anguish. Maybe I'll get better at it by trying, if not well, at least my 2 or 3 readers will know I'm still sorta trying.

I’ve been thinking.

I’m pretty sure you would prefer that I had spent time writing, but this was not one of these weeks. Actually, I ran into a huge snag: I don’t feel like writing anymore. I don’t have inspiration, I don’t want to dig my brains for new plot points, all I want is turn my brain off and be a zombie for a couple of weeks.

I know why too: I can’t deal with jobs. I needed to work to pay bills, and as soon as I accepted the job, I lost my will to write, I hardly take any time to work on my school stuff, and I basically lost the drive I needed to finish what I started.

I hate feeling like this, but right now that’s where I am: I have a job I don’t want, and I no longer have the drive to do what I do want. I’m gonna have to inspect my feelings and figure a way out of this because right now it sucks.

Delay in stories

Sorry, real life is getting in the way again. Next week I will get back to my regular posting schedule. A friend of mine is getting married and I'm not gonna have enough time to devote to writing. Don't worry, I got ideas, I just cant sit down and write them right now.

A Trail part 2 (Trouble Part 8)

Technology’s good in a way. However, it can easily be avoided if the person knows what they are doing. In this case the red light was on, the recorder had run out of space, and I would not have to worry about the cameras. I studied the setup carefully, noticed that it did not go to a phone line, and counted my blessings. I went back upstairs, ready to get to work. Opening the door to the office was easy, Madeline had the key. I took out my digital camera and started taking pictures, every angle, everything that was in there. I wanted to make sure I would put everything back in its proper location once I was done snooping around. Madeline smiled and pointed out that this was a smart trick, but that she could not use it in her stories, because of their setting. I smiled and politely answered that my father used to have an old Polaroid just for that.

The office was clean. Everything had a spot and everything was quite practical and logical, nothing like mine. It did make my job a lot easier. I took out my laptop and started scanning every document; it would be easier for me to look them over once I was back in my office. I also took pictures of everything I could find, date books, address books, even receipts from different companies. I also looked over the newspapers in the trash bin. There was an important clue in the business section: many stocks were highlighted. Always the same. I quickly went over the list and noticed that all the companies I had traced back to him were there, in addition to a few others that I had not looked at. This would prove useful when trying to establish everything he owned, as he may have shares in companies I did not know about. I foolishly dismissed the pack of cigarettes until Madeline pointed out that Albert did not smoke. I opened the pack. In it, there were small pieces of papers and a bunch of keys. They keys were numbered, like the papers. There were 14 keys, and 14 pieces of paper, each indicating what the key was for. They were for safety boxes in banks, lockers, mailboxes, and even rented storage. More importantly, the names under which these boxes had been rented were listed. Thompson had used 3 different names. Thompson was for the banks, Arthur Clarke for the mailboxes and Frank Bennett for everything else.

The two new names were not familiar in any way. He had been good at covering his tracks, too good. At this point, Madeline told me she wasn’t sure about what I had said earlier, but now she could not deny it, her husband was involved into something bigger than cheating. Looking over the cabinets one last time before putting everything back into place, I found a double bottom. From it I pulled out a small locked box. I grabbed my tools and opened it. Inside, there were some legal papers that were probably important, but what drew my attention were the pictures: wedding photos of Albert getting married to his mistress when they were both pretty young. There was also a wedding ring with the pictures. I carefully unfolded the legal papers, there was a wedding certificate, issued over 20 years ago, for Frank Bennett’s marriage to Samantha Mitchell.


[Yeah, it's kinda short, but at that point in the story, I felt that adding on would simply ruin the tension of that moment. The story is getting somewhere, I promise.]

First Hunt, part 2 (Under a Crimson Moon part 2)

After that first night of conscious hunting, I started dreading the following two days. I did not know much about what I had become, so I went with what popular culture told me. Three nights of brutal animal behaviour, and then 25 days of peace. When the second night came, I locked the door to my room, and did my best to tie myself up to avoid hurting anyone. When the moon rose in the distance, fear filled me. I wanted to remain human, to stop with the killings. But, some part of me buried deep inside wanted this to happen. I wanted to be unleashed and when this desire grew, I could feel my body changing. I pushed this back deep. I relaxed, and closed my eyes. When I woke up, I was still tied up to my bed. The sun was about to rise, and I realized something that should have been obvious at first: I was still tied and had no way to free myself. I would have to yell out so that my parents would come and help me.

As I was starting to worry about this, I realized that had I changed into an animal, I could have simply chewed out the rope I used. I figured I could try it anyway, before calling my parents and dealing with another awkward discussion. As I started gnawing at the rope, my teeth felt different, sharper and stronger. The rope gave out quickly. With a shudder, I slowly walked towards a mirror, expecting my face to have changed. Everything remained the same. I was still myself. However, my senses were sharper, I felt stronger, and my nails and teeth were sharper. It took me quite some time to realize what this actually meant, but now I know that the animal and the human in me are not quite so separate, when I am covered with fur and hunting, a human mind still guides me, and when I am moving around, there is still a greater part of animal than in the average person. Back then, all of this was quite confusing. After breakfast, I asked my parents if I could go around being grounded to go to the library and do some reading. After the initial shock, they agreed. I was supposed to start working at my summer job at the gas station the following day, and I wanted to figure this thing out before having to accept or refuse night shifts. I obviously explained to my parents that I wanted to do some reading about something one of my teachers had said. They later told me that they figured I was going to see a friend or something, but that I had been punished enough.

What I knew about my condition back then amounted to what TV had told me: the three nights around the full moon would make me change, I would hunt people I loved, and only silver could stop me. I decided to look in depth at what the older folklore was. I did waste some time getting used to looking around the library, it was something I had avoided most of my life. The first mentions of this condition date from the middle ages, but there don’t mention the three nights of full moon. The people affected were said to end up being hairier, my genes kept me pretty much free of body hair so far, and so any change on that aspect would be odd, but could be blame on growing up. The people supposedly affected were also more violent, preferred meat over vegetable, and had a better affinity with dogs and wolves. Every story, except radical re-imagining of this condition, mentioned that I would have had to be bitten. The public library did not have a vast selection of books on this topic, however there was an anthropologist that had written about this condition being the rationalisation for medieval societies to understand random acts of violence. A combination of mistrust of strangers, lack of understanding of psychology, and fear of wolves and wild beasts basically fused under the werewolf myth. Other books mentioned other transformation linked to spirituality and other animals, but it hardly felt compatible with what I had experienced.

The full moon connection was also tenuous at best, however as chance would have it, I found an article in a psychology magazine that seem to indicate that people acted up a bit more during full moons, listening a lot more to their instinct than their reason. Nothing made sense really, but I did find the right excuse to avoid working on full moon nights: I would pretend I had selenophobia. Back then it felt like a smart excuse, thankfully it would become a bit stronger after I would share my new fear with my parents. When I started sharing this, my mother told me she understood, considering what had happened in the woods the previous month. My parents offered to have me see a therapist, to at least talk about the death, as I was the close to her when she died, and they feared I would have some sort of survivor’s guilt. From that day on, until I understood more about my condition, I would simply flinch and react whenever I would see a moon, real or fake. It wasn’t hard, whenever I was reminded of the moon, I remembered the pale blue light on the warm ruby blood dripping on my fur, fangs, and claws. Every time that image came back to haunt me I shuddered. Was it remorse, fear, or satisfaction?

Tonight I would sneak out again, facing the moon once more.

[Sorry I did not update Trouble as I said I would. Sitting down t write a story was a bit harder than I expected. By Saturday, a new chapter will be added to trouble. I would like to think this post however reflects the experience I am gaining every time I write. I don't have to slow myself down as much, there will be more parts dealing with this first hunt, which is basically the character reflecting on how he came into term with what happened back then. I also won't follow any version of the mythology behind werewolves beyond the basics: humans who turn into wolf like creatures. This is linked to the lunar cycle, but I may try to take it in a new direction. This is probably why some versions chose the 3 nights of the full moon... A story can only get so slow, and with the idea of one night of full moon, the werewolf of these legends could have easily slipped unnoticed.

I also realize I seem to have issues with naming protagonists. I'll try and fix that in the near future. For Trouble, it seems to work, for this one, I will give him a name as soon as I can.]

First Hunt, part 1 (Under a Crimson Moon part 1)

It’s hard to understand. I doubt any one of you reading this is going to see me, us, as nothing more than cursed people. I don’t blame you. At first I was certain I was cursed. I contemplated a lot of things, and I very much hated myself for what I realised: I liked it. Every month, for a couple of days, I felt alive. And it was nothing like what I had known before. After the first year, I understood what had happened. And with every ounce of understanding I gained, I got control. Why am I writing this text now? Because I want everyone to know the truth. I can read the papers, I can see the cover-ups. I can see how these betray fear and misunderstanding. But now I will come clean, I will let the world know, and after that, the world will still tremble in fear. But this time, they will fear the right thing.

It all started 10 years ago. I was a young boy back then. Of course, you could not have told me that, teenagers like to believe they are anything but young kids. Looking back however, I was an idiot. And like all teenage idiot, I liked alcohol, parties, and doing whatever the hell I wanted. This lead me to this clearing in the woods behind the drive-in with a bunch of people I did not know, drinking whatever we manage to buy from employees who couldn’t care less about laws. So there we were, in the woods, getting drunk, and being stupid. That’s when I saw her. She was cute, she was drunk, and she was practically naked, so I did the only logical thing: I started flirting. That wasn’t accounting for the jock boyfriend who was also a mean drunk.

He started yelling, I started punching. I felt my nose break; I heard his ribs crack when I slugged him with a nearby log. At this point, the party was over, I didn’t care. My face hurt, and I was left alone with all the leftover alcohol from the party. So I kept on drinking. It numbed the pain, my senses, and I decided to sleep. I found a comfortable log, and dozed off. I wasn’t alone in the clearing when I fell asleep. When I woke up there was blood everywhere. No one else was there. My face no longer hurt, I was sure my nose was broke, but I managed to breath without any problems. Couldn’t say that much about the other person that slept here last night, he was missing an arm, among other things.

When the police was called, I was still quite busy throwing up. The report said that a rabid dog or some other animal had come in, saw the free human buffet and went for it. Back then I had just been lucky. I had puked before falling asleep; this most likely kept the animal away. The rest of the exam period was a bit uncomfortable. The big outdoor party planned after prom was moved indoors, everybody was sad, and everyone started avoiding me, as if by surviving, I had been responsible.

Three weeks after school was over, I started feeling restless. Something inside me wanted to go outside, run, climb, move, hunt. Being still grounded for the reckless use of alcohol and other stupidities, I had to sneak out. The moon was full, and it was bright. The light was revealing the true nature of things.

And this is the important part: the moon was just revealing the nature of everything. Trees that were part of the background of every day life became living beings in the night. The sky was no longer obscured by the light of a lying sun, it was dark, the stars were no longer hidden. Everything is different under the light of the moon, and I realized back then that I was changing. It was strange, at first I felt cold, naked, alone. Then I felt my heard pounding, my body became warmer, I felt my skin stretch. I took off my clothes. I did not need the artificial skin they provided; the moon would only tolerate my true skin. Finally, I felt my senses grow stronger. I could hear everything that was around me, I could smell flowers from yards away, and I could see through the night.
What happened next was a great source of torment in my early months. I smelled something, it smelled sweet, tasty, I had to go for it. I ran, the smell becoming stronger, and after reaching a small forest about 2 miles away from home, I caught up with what drew me there. It was a deer. It was sleeping, but I was inexperienced, and loud. Still not adjusted to the changes in my body, to the claws were nails used to be, I mad a lot of noise trying to sneak up. The deer woke up. It started running but what I lacked in subtlety, I made up in speed and force. I caught it, ripped it apart and devoured it. The blood, the flesh, the taste was wonderful. As I brought my fangs deeper in the deer’s flesh, I started remembering. The alcohol, the party, the girl. I was hunting that night, I was already hungry. And when I slept, I ate. The girl that died, the rabid animal, all the sadness. It was my fault.

And I liked it.

I revelled in the destruction, I swallowed the flesh, gnawed at the bones. I devoured the dear like I devoured that poor girl’s arm. Poor girl? I had amusing sentimentality back then. It was the natural order of the thing. I am predator, but back then, I still felt attachment to these preys. And as I looked up from the deer, and stared at the moon, the light slowly becoming pure crimson reminded me of that night, the month before, when I had done my job as predator. Every memory returned. I was made aware of how, after everyone left, I woke up. She was there, half naked, trying to rouse me up. She had managed to remove most of my clothes as I slept. Washing away the fumes of alcohol that were hindering my body, I got up, and then I got in. As this primordial act was taking place, I felt the effects of the moon on my body. The moonlight rushed into me as I was losing myself into her. Her screams of joy turned to screams of pain. She saw who I truly was, and under the moon, I realised that she was just made of meat. She stopped screaming as se saw my jaws slowly wrapping themselves around her arm. She cried; I could smell the salt of her tears. And I ripped her arm off of its socket. Her blood was delicious. It filled me up quite nicely. She tried to crawl away, but I caught her leg. She was crying, pleading with me using these words that sound so empty when you see their true origins. I licked her body, it was now covered in dirt, blood, tears, sweat. I saw her eyes fill with a darkness that was beyond fear. No sound left her mouth anymore, she understood.

I was predator, she was prey. Her neck became my next snack.

I sensed that the night was almost over, I ran home, put my cloths back on and went up the wall and through my window. I took off the cloths again, looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t quite sure what I was, but I felt I was no longer just human.

[Yes, I am starting another longer story. And yes, this is what I wanted "Lunarity"to be like, something more visceral, more primal. A story where the character is not one we want to identify with. I also wanted to bring something new to make up for the last few days where I did not post. I will try to post another chapter of Trouble as soon as I can sit down and write it, and I will try to add to this new project of mine. I think it's time I moved away from the ultra short stories, I think I have reached the limit of what I can do in these tiny fragments of a real story. Crimson Moon here is gonna run in parallel with Trouble, but I will try to write Trouble on Saturdays and Crimson on Wednesdays. I may do some other experiments with writing, but I will no longer delude myself in thinking these work as stories.]