/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6011670]

Hail, /lit/
I wonder if you could help me- I'm an aspiring, author, I've finished a fantasy-thriller (surreal noir) that I'm working on editing. I'm presenting it to a writer's group, and all I've heard so far is rave reviews about how it's entertaining, engaging and exciting. I'm wondering if anyone can offer advice to alleviate the pain of the assfuck gauntlet of finding an agent, or, better yet, a publisher.
To keep you entertained, here's Chapter 7- 'Pemberton Suffered'

[Anonymous No.6011673]

>>6011670
Sorry, been drinking tonight and not proofreading-
Case VII
Pemberton Suffered

“Are you sure you heard them right?” Charles asked, pushing his officer’s cap back on his head.
David shrugged with a sigh. “I’m not sure they knew what they were talking about. It took them about five minutes just to admit that he was in there. Are we even sure this is the right guy?”
“Let me check again,” Charles said, pushing the button on the walkie-talkie mouthpiece wired up to the shoulder of his uniform. There was a burst of static, and he began to speak.
“Hey, this is Dodger over on Shepherd Street- what’s the evidence that the suspect would be coming here?”
A pause, then a gritty, low-resolution voice came in response. “Copy Dodger, hospital receptionist ID’d him by photo, and the man he dropped off gave his name and the name of the club he was going to.” A crinkle of static, then silence.
Agitated, David moved his cap back towards his forehead. “So, here’s what I don’t get. We get here, say we’re looking for someone, guy at the door says he don’t know anything. Tell him the name, he don’t know anything. Show him the picture, he gets all agitated, gets all nervous, and says he don’t have to tell us nothing. You come in-“
“And tell him we know he’s in there, and he should cooperate-“
David shook his head with a chuckle. “That’s why I’m glad I came with you, you always know how to squeeze ‘em. Yeah, so then he gets REAL nervous, like this guy we’re lookin’ for is some kinda witness or somethin’, tells us to wait here, and goes-“

[Anonymous No.6011679]

>>6011673
“Officers,” the bouncer stepped out of the front entrance of The El Paradiso, accompanied by a brief burst of bass before being barred by the closing door, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
David turned from his partner and smiled. “Well, a nice surprise! We were starting to get worried you’d run off.”
“Not at all, sir,” the bouncer smiled back, unassumingly self-assured and cooperative. “I had just been checking with the bartender about the gentleman you were inquiring about. Turns out, Ben is a bit of a drinker. The fellow managed to toss back half a bottle in shots before picking a fight with a bunch of off-duty construction workers. The way I heard it, he got roughed up pretty brutal before security tossed his ass out.” He thumbed along the sidewalk by the club entrance. “If his drunk ass hasn’t stumbled off yet, he oughta be in that alley somewheres.”
The two officers glanced over at the alley he was talking about. Charles looked back to the doorman, tipped his hat, and courteously said, “thank you for your help.” Without another word, the two of them headed over to the entrance of the alley.

[Anonymous No.6011686]

>>6011679
Once they were out of earshot, David turned to Charles. “…You see that? Don’t tell me that ain’t weird, man, two minutes ago that guy was about to shit a dictionary, now he’s just cool as a penguin tellin’ us exactly what we were askin’ for?”
Charles, without sharing his partner’s excitement, glanced back at him as he stepped into the alley. “Kinda kills your theory, donnit?” Charles muttered, pulling out his flashlight, “If he were some kinda witness, would they just toss him out like this?”
“Nah,” David acquiesced, “I guess not.” He scratched his temple, following close behind as his partner poked around the alleyway. “Say, what’re we bringin’ this guy in for, anyway?”
Charles shook some litter off of his shoe. “Implicated in a couple of murders in the past couple of nights. Officers wanna detain him in case he was involved.” He cautiously leaned forward to shine his flashlight in the shadows behind a dumpster.
“So… this guy is a murder suspect? Or a witness, or what?”
“Dunno, David,” Charles muttered, sweeping his light against the clubhouse wall, “I just know the detective wants the guy brought in for questioning.”
David scoffed, “you mean more questioning,” he looked over his shoulder cautiously. “I wonder what they’re gonna ask that they didn’t get the first time?”
“I wouldn’t talk like that if I- hey,” Charles’ tone changed, “hey, look at that. Does that look like what we’re looking for?”
David stepped up to Charles’ beam of light, squinting at the bruised, tangled heap lying on the ground in the illuminated oval. He pulled out a photograph and held it up to the flashlight, comparing it to the form collapsed in front of them. The officer gave a hollow chuckle.
“Evening, Mr. Macyntire.”

[Anonymous No.6011689]

>>6011686
Bint was lying on the ground in the middle of a vast, sunless desert. He didn’t know where his body was, just that it was somewhere far away from him. The last thing he remembered before coming here was taking a few solid punches in the face that sent those thugs and that club and the city flying off into the distance, out of sight. Lying there, in numb darkness, he would have thought he was already dead if not for the vague, churning black clouds of pain and fear rumbling overhead. He felt a deep breath rush through a throat somewhere unseen in the distance, and he sighed, thinking how nice it was to get a break from having a body.
After a brief eternity of waiting in darkness, removed from all sensation but the stench of fermented trash and mildew, he heard voices. There were two of them, men’s voices, chasing after a high-pitched blob of light rolling around Bint’s desert with impossible speed. The voices grew closer as the beam closed in on Bint, and, in an instant, the sickly-yellow illumination engulfed him, igniting his eyes in a high-pitched screech. He was frozen in the light for a moment before it cut off again, leaving him again in darkness.
The voices came upon him, hovering overhead for longer than his sense of time could comprehend. Slowly, he became aware of a sensation of touch- somewhere in the desert, miles and miles to his left, a hand was hooking under something that might have been Bint’s armpit. Curious, Bint tried to expand his realm of sense to his far-off right; sure enough, there he found another armpit, where another hand was working under to gain a firm grip.
Slowly, Bint rose from the desert floor, higher and higher into the air, thousands of feet up. He was moving forward, sailing straight along so high above the desert, it started to look like the pavement in an alleyway. Gradually, he became aware that the desert was actually the floor of a valley, with dark, vertical cliff faces running parallel on either side of him. He was rushing along, flying along this valley, when he found strength enough to flex his neck and tuck his chin down to see his body, heavy and massive and clumsy, being dragged limply along the floor of the desert. With immense effort, he flexed his neck again, looking up to catch just a glimpse of the wide-open back door of a squad car. The hands disappeared, and he had a momentary sensation of floating before colliding into a leathery seat.

[Anonymous No.6011701]

>>6011689
When the door shut behind him, Bint started to gain an awareness of his surroundings. ‘okay,’ he thought, ‘i’m in the back of a cop car. that’s where i am. how did i get here? i was at the club… met with that guy… what was his name? i said something he didn’t like… he had those guys beat me up… why am i under arrest? i didn’t do-woooaaahhrrg,’ his entire mind sloshed to the pit of his stomach as the squad car rolled away from the club. Cognizance became impossible in the gentle sway of the back seat. Bint squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on staying conscious, fighting the rhythmic lull of the car rolling across cracks in the pavement.
Dub-dlub, dub-dlub.
He took a deep breath and curled up, squeezing his arms tight around him. ‘cops here, cops were looking for me,’ he chewed his tongue, biting hard enough to get focused. ‘i’m lucky, cops might be the only reason he didn’t kill me.’
Dub-dlub, dub-dlub.
‘why did he want to talk to me, that guy in the club? he must’ve been important…what did he want with me?’
Dub-dlub, dub-dlub.
‘he was saying a lot of stuff- stuff about- what was it? power? something about controlling the people in that club? names? …names… what was his name… what was his-‘
He opened his eyes. Above his head was a wide, open sky, dim and orange, like a fiery-bright twilight illuminating a ceiling of clouds. He tried moving- his body was oddly light and strong. He sat up and looked around: he was sitting at the stern of a small boat, in the middle of a wide, flat sea of dark waters. The water was gentle, with only enough breeze to stir up a few short peaks that reflected the orange glow of the sky as they beat against the sides of the boat.

[Anonymous No.6011709]

>>6011701
Dub-dlub, dub-dlub.
Stiff with surprised fear, he apprehensively cast his eyes out along the horizon, trying to find any land or boats or any sign of life, but the sea was totally empty. He turned, slowly, until his gaze landed on the opposite end of the boat. There, tucked snugly into the prow of the boat in a finely-tailored suit with a glass of wine in his had, sat Apikoros, smiling.
“Hello there, sunshine.”
Bint was rigid, surprised and confused by his new host. Apikoros’ soothing demeanor gradually sank in, and Bint slowly sat himself down at the end of the boat, returning the gentleman’s pleased look.
“What a night… first i get lost, chased, broken in on, beaten and arrested, then get lost at sea in the back of a squad car. You might not believe it,” Bint started, “But i’m very glad to see you.”
His eyes closed, Apikoros swirled the wine glass under his nose a moment before responding. “I never believe anything, but that’s very nice to hear.” He looked like he was trying to subdue a smile.
A faint spirit of confidence in slightly understanding how this man’s world operated, mixed with impatience of knowing he only had a short time there, prompted Bint to break the silence. “I have questions.”
“I’m sure I can help you turn them into different questions,” Apikoros said reassuringly.
Bint took a deep breath and cradled his head, waiting for the rise and fall of the boat to dislodge a vital memory. After a second, his head popped up excitedly.
“Names!” Apikoros stared at him with intense blankness. “I have names! Maybe you could tell me what you know about them?”
Apikoros shrugged and, closing his eyes, returned the glass to his nose. “I’m all ears.”

[Anonymous No.6011716]

>>6011701
I like your characters and the overall feel of what you're posting so far, but your writing needs some work ("Nah," David acquiesced--seriously nigga?) and your dialogue is written too colloquially to be read smoothly.

That said, I was expecting way worse from your description, OP. Touch this up and it could be genuinely great.

[Anonymous No.6011717]

>>6011709
Bint squeezed his eyes shut, scratching his head as he struggled to pull a stable, meaningful stream of syllables out of the garbled confusion embroiling his mind. He felt like he could unlock every question he needed to be asking if he could just find the-
“Clara Leijer.”
The sommelier at the prow didn’t even look up. “Never heard of it.”
Undaunted, he tried free-associating to find his next clue. “Jude St. Brutus.”
A shrug, and more wine-sniffing. Bint tried to think up the next name, struggling to remember the name of the man in that office.
“There was a man,” Bint explained, the hope waning in his voice, “At the club- I can’t remember his name, but, at The El Paradiso, he had this office, and i went in to talk to him. I think it might have been…Marty? No, maybe Bill… or… I know this isn’t right, but it sounds like Greg.”


***
Apikoros’ eyes lit up. “Grex?” A little wine sloshed out of his glass as he eagerly seated himself closer to Bint, “So, you got to meet Grex?”
Bint was unsure how to answer. “Actually, when i went to the club, he had his goons bring me up to meet him.”
Grinning and scrunching up his shoulders like an entertained child, Apikoros chuckled, “Ooooh, you’re lucky you made it out of there! I’d be afraid of being at that guy’s mercy.” He straightened up and took a sip of his wine, speaking casually into the hollow of the glass, “Did he give you the speech about names?”

[Anonymous No.6011727]

>>6011716
Thanks! As is, I need plenty of editing, hence the writer's group. I have no doubt that with some good editing it'll be a phenomenon. Stick around! It hasn't gotten good yet!

Bint blinked and, with hopeful excitement, said “Yes! He did! I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but he was going on about how he has power over everyone at that club because they knew his name, and he had power over me because i knew it too… and something…” Bint rolled his eyes, trying to make sense of a half-formed and well-bruised memory, “…something about another name, one that’s powerful. He didn’t explain how that made any sense, but he seemed convinced about it.”
“He is convinced,” Apikoros concurred, standing up. Whether by his balance or the boat’s good design, the vessel hardly stirred under him. “Utterly convinced. Sure to the point of madness that his beliefs are an absolute truth.”
“Truth, yeah,” Bint nodded, “he had this whole spiel about how power and fame and stuff all come from truth, but only the TRUE truth.”
“He’s a dangerous man, Bint,” the host said, precariously perched on the prow, “Men who hold absolute beliefs are always risky to deal with, but when you add his bottomless desire for power and his missing-marbles belief system, Grex is some serious trouble.” He then muttered something that Bint couldn’t hear, but thought he could pick out, “Jeremiah 31:15.”
Nodding in agreement, Bint ventured a question that Apikoros would delight in obfuscating. “What is the power of names? What makes a name powerful?”

[Anonymous No.6011741]

Dont have the time to read all of it but it seems alright. I like the dialogue but you have to work on the narration. For example just at the start, the part about the walkie-talkie mouthpiece stands out. Like it's kind of a mouth full for something so simple. Readers aren't interested in hearing about the way his radio works, and the prose isn't good enough to pull off talking about mundane things.

I'm just being picky though.

[Anonymous No.6011760]

>>6011727
Making a very serious face, Apikoros took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“Imagine this,” he said, instantly sending Bint into apprehension, “Somewhere, there is a town, full of people, doing as people do. Friends, enemies, customers, families, everyone just living their lives. Now, in living out their lives, they learn names- some learn lots of names, some just a few, but every person in that village can be defined by what names they know.
“Now, imagine, one day a conquering army comes to the village. Bloodthirsty, merciless, they’re set on slaughtering every man, woman and child under the orders of their lord. The reason for this turns out to be that, as a show of diplomacy, the lord’s son grew up in that village, just another name among many. Once his son had grown into a man, he was murdered by some of the villagers. When news reached his father, he went into such a rage that he ordered the whole town destroyed.
“So, you’re living in a town, and the streets are crawling with soldiers slaughtering elderly women and newborn infants, and you know they’re doing it because someone, somewhere in the city was foreign royalty. What could get you out of it?” He leaned to Bint, expectantly.
Bint scratched his chin, looking intensely at the floor of the boat, trying to come up with a passable answer.
Dub-dlub. Dub-dlub.
He looked up. “The prince’s name?”
“Correct!” Apikoros seated himself again, waving his free hand animatedly, “If you could convince the soldiers that you were an old friend of the crown prince, they would spare your life! And the only way you could prove it,” he held up his finger triumphantly, “Would be if you knew his name.”
Dub-dlub. Dub-dlub.
“So an entire village gets slaughtered… except for the ones who knew the name of one guy, who seemed no different from any other guy, and the only time they find out if they knew the right name is after it’s too late?”

[Anonymous No.6011767]

>>6011741
I like it, it's the kind of feedback I need so thank you.

Apikoros nodded with a sardonic smirk.
“That’s fucked up, Apikoros,” Bint stated, stunned.
“Oh, and that’s just the beginning,” Apikoros prattled on, running his finger along the rim of his wine-glass, “In my story, the fate befalls a small village. What Grex has planned will bring it upon the entire world.”
Dub-dlub. Dub-dlub.
Bint stared off into the horizon, a smoldering-orange ceiling of clouds disappearing into the broad, flat waterline. Gears in his head were clicking and turning before softening to soap and squishing into each other, melting together into a single whirling glob. Bint’s hand wandered up to his jacket pocket, and the glob in his head went solid with a click.
“What’s ‘The King Come Home’?” He asked innocently.
Apikoros choked on his wine, sputtering a little onto his well-groomed dress suit. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what? ‘The King-‘”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, the humor gone from his voice. “That’s how they catch people. It’s how they control people.”
Bint squinted, crossing his eyes. “How can a four-word phrase control people?”
“Because of the four words,” he replied gravely. “When you first saw it, maybe on a napkin, or a business card, it was that phrase, with two words, right?”
“Yeah! Just like-“ He pulled out the coaster which had led him back to the club, but when he looked at it, the lettering was all jumbled together in an illegible mass. He stared at the piece of board in his hand, swept up in the confusion it implied. “…What are these things?”

[Anonymous No.6011773]

>>6011767
“Bint,” Apikoros leaned forward, looking very concerned and speaking slowly, “Do you remember what those two words were?”
“No,” Bint responded without hesitating, “I’ve seen two of those things, but i forgot both times.”
Apikoros let out a gentle sigh. “That’s a relief, then. You’re in no danger. Absit nomen, absit omen.”
Before Bint could request clarification, Apikoros continued. “It’s called a ‘capture.’ It’s a way of creating a distinct, discreet event in your memories that can be used by the people who put it there. It’s like installing a very tiny back door to your mind that only one person has the key to.”
Bint looked down, staring at the mass of black lines squiggling across the paper tile in his hand. “I don’t really want to know this, but…” he swallowed, hesitant, “Why would anyone want to go through a backdoor in my mind?”
For a long moment, Apikoros gazed at Bint with troubled, worried eyes, silently sculpting an answer in his head. He sniffled, drained the remaining wine in a single swig and back-handedly cast his glass into the sea. “Okay,” he murmured, closing his eyes and pressing his fingertips together, “Imagine this…”
“Uh,” Bint interrupted, “Is this one of those explanations that confuses me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, okay. Go ahead.”
Apikoros exhaled long and slow, cultivating gravitas before gazing intently into Bint’s eyes. Despite his best intentions of keeping absent-mindedly skeptical, his guide’s wide, shining eyes were so deep and dark as to keep Bint’s attention helplessly engrossed. It may have been a trick of the gentle ocean twilight, but Bint could have sworn the man’s eyes were subtly changing color as he watched.

[Anonymous No.6011777]

>>6011773
“Imagine this,” his voice flowed as smooth as a ribbon, “you’re in a room. You’re safe in this room, it’s familiar, it’s someplace you’ve known your whole life, and you know you can stay there as long as you want. Only problem is, you don’t know what’s outside. Beyond the walls and the windows and the doors of that room is darkness and mystery, but that doesn’t matter to you because all you need is your room.
“Now, let’s say one day you hear something at the door. A voice trying to convince you to trust it, telling you to open the door. Maybe it's the voice of someone you trust, like a relative or loved one, maybe someone you haven’t seen for a long time, or someone you thought had died. Maybe this voice is trying to bargain with you, offer you wealth, power, anything you want if you just open the door, maybe it’s threatening you, telling all the horrible things it will do once it’s inside unless you open the door willingly.” He hesitated, trying to calm the tremble starting to show in his voice, “The sad fact is, you don’t know what’s outside that room, out there in the darkness. You don’t know who or what it is. You don’t know if it’s going to give you treasure or reunite you with a loved one. All you know, the only thing you can be really certain of,” Apikoros softened his gaze and stood up, “is that whatever it is, whatever it will do, it’s outside. And it wants to come in.”
Bint blinked and shook his head. “Wait, so what’s outside the door?”
Apikoros smiled.
“What does that have to do with the capture? Who’s the King?”
Bending over, Apikoros reached down and lifted up a long slender chain from the floor of the boat.
Bint held his hands out pleadingly, “Who has a backdoor to my head?”

[Anonymous No.6011784]

>>6011777
“Ah, Bint, I like you,” Apikoros replied fondly, pulling the chain taught, “Good intentions are such a treasure in this age.” With a deft jerk of his wrist, Apikoros tore open a hole in the bottom of the boat. The craft lurched suddenly down into the water as a burst of foam gushed up through the bottom, filling the boat. Bint scrambled onto the edge of the craft, watching the hollow cavity rapidly fill up.
“What’re you doing?!” He demanded, “You’re gonna kill us!”
He looked up just in time to catch a glimpse of Apikoros, with his neatly-groomed hair and immaculate suit grinning delightedly, standing on his toes right on the very corner of the prow.
“Your intentions will be what saves you,” he stated over the gurgling water, “You sit at the threshold of a depth, a terrible, immeasurable abyss beyond your control or even comprehension, and you concern yourself with how you could contain, or confront, or conquer such an impossible emptiness…” He chuckled light-heartedly, hopping backwards off the edge of the boat. He landed face-up with a * splap * onto the water, lying on top of the sea as if it was an endless mattress. “…When all you had to do… was float.”
Water gushing into the boat up to his knees, Bint watched in horror as the craft started to tear apart and dissolve like cardboard in the water. He gave a panicked gasp as the remains of the craft sank out from under his hands, drifting into the bottomless depth beneath him. He could feel the tepid, calm waters all over himself, tugging at his clothes, tangling his limbs, gripping tightly around his neck as he desperately scrambled to keep his head above the water. The last sight his eyes caught before being enveloped in darkness was Apikoros, lying on top of the water like he was taking a nap on a shag carpet, his eyes closed as he twirled a finger carelessly in the air. “And don’t worry about the interrogation, friend,” he chimed with carefree confidence, “I’ll send a little something into last night to help you get out of there.”

[Anonymous No.6011788]

>>6011784
In that moment, darkness washed over Bint Macyntire. His world went silence, save for the glugging churn of water all around him, and the muted tattoo of his own heartbeat. He thrashed and struggled for a moment, before he realized in his weightless suspension in darkness that he didn’t know which way was up, which direction would bring him out of darkness. He stopped struggling and drifted, for a time, alone in the lightless deep, not moving, not breathing. In the numbing, lonely, blind silence, Bint’s head began to buzz with thought.
'Something on the outside, trying to get in… Knowing the name of something will protect you from it, unless it damns you further… Grex is crazy over finding the name of something… those people use phrases about the King to ‘capture’ people…' The stillness and silence created an uninterrupted pocket of activity in Bint’s head large enough to arrange the pieces of the puzzle. 'What if… What if Grex is trying to ‘let in’ the King to-' Bint’s mental worktable was wiped clear in a split instant by a strange clunking sound, then a sharp click that sent a jolt through Bint’s body as he tumbled backwards out of the squad car. Colorful stars danced through Bint’s eyes as he gasped desperately for precious air. Once his breathing slowed enough for the light show to subside, he could clearly make out the upside-down face of what he quickly recognized as Detective Del Fuego, looking down at him disapprovingly.
Del Fuego jerked his head to the side. “Get him downstairs.” Strong hands gripped onto his arms, and with one last sense-jumbling contortion of gravity’s direction, he was upright and being dragged off down a strange, featureless concrete hallway.

[Anonymous No.6011800]

>>6011767
I like the idea and your writing isn't bad but the link between "grex" needing you to know his name and Christianity is to obvert.

I'd say take the same idea and tone it down one level on subtlety.

Oh and no one is going to take a godlike bad guy named grex seriously. In my opinion a very powerful character needs a multi syllable name with a rhythm to it. Obviously that doesn't apply to every villan with a good name, so really just improve on grex.

[Spoiler] I'm super high though[/spoiler]

[Anonymous No.6011866]

>>6011788
The next thing he knew, Bint was slouched over in a metal chair in front of a metal table, noticing how stained and torn his jacket was from his encounter with Grex’s men. He squeezed his blurry eyes and tried to put the room into focus- bare concrete walls, lit by a single fluorescent ceiling light that buzzed monotonously. Taking a deep breath, he straightened up with a groan, stretching his head to the left. There, beside him, was a single door in the wall. Turning back to the right, he saw a large mirror that he immediately assumed someone was watching him through. He stared at his reflection, small and distant in the huge mirror, and poked gingerly at the cuts and bruises on his face when a loud clack turned his attention to the door.
Detective Del Fuego stepped into the sickly light of the room, in the same suit he had worn earlier that day. He wore a scowl, wordlessly moving over to the table and tossing down a hefty file folder, tied closed with twine. Closing the door behind him, Marco entered and stood in a corner behind Del Fuego.
The detective glared down at Bint from under the shadow of his hat’s brim, and Bint looked unassumingly back. The gaze rode through an uncomfortable silence of several seconds before Bint shifted in his seat and muttered, “…Detective. How, uh… how’ve you been?”
The detective shook his head and took a deep breath, Marco chuckling behind him. “How have I been?” he said coldly. “Imagine having your eyeballs in a vice while a rottweiler is flossing its teeth with your dick, then your boss walks in and says he’ll skin you alive if you don’t solve that Rubix cube before the building burns down around you. That’s how I’ve been.”

[Anonymous No.6011887]

>>6011800
That's good advice- there's some back story I'm not including here, I think it smoothes out a little.
lucky bitch! are you near Boston? feel like making some money?

Blank-eyed, Bint nodded and turned towards the mirror. “Is this part of due process? Or is he improvising?”
Stony-faced, Del Fuego began to unwind the string around the file, folding it open onto the table. He scattered out several folders from a stack, flipping them open and positioning them before Bint.
“Have you been following the news, Mr. Macyntire?” The detective picked up one of the folders and leafed through the loose pages.
His shoulders slumping, he sighed and shook his head. “I’m more of a funnies guy, myself.”
“Well,” Del Fuego mumbled, “Let’s see if you find this funny. Fourteen murders over twenty years. That we know of.”
Bint felt his skin go cold, and he looked back down at the table. Among the folders of pages, he saw some photos of what could have been bodies. He leaned forward as the detective continued.
“Nine in this state, five in this city. The first reports were a few of them at once in a small town upstate. Three years later, a couple dead bodies at a university on the West coast. Nothing for a decade and a half, then they start slowly popping up in our very hometown over the course of years.”

[Anonymous No.6011892]

>>6011887
Bint swallowed, then nodded meekly. “Are they connected?”
Shaking his head, the detective shrugged. “No way to be sure. There were no prints, no witnesses, no motive, no suspects.” He ran his fingers across the open pages spread across the table. “One of them was filed as a suicide- nailed his necktie to a rafter and hung himself. A lot of them died from blood loss, from what one examiner called ‘morbidly extreme hemorrhage.’ There were a couple of cases where there was no cause of death, that the victims just collapsed mid-step.”
Rubbing his forehead, Bint tried to keep up. “Wait… so if they all died differently… and there were never any suspects, how-“
“It all started to add up,” Del Fuego interjected, “When we looked closer. A couple of the victims kept journals that held corresponding entries. In half the cases, close friends mentioned the victims’ talking about it before they died. One of them drew a rough sketch, which matched up with footage from a security camera at the scene of another murder, fifteen years later.”
Bint, growing less and less clear on the point the detective was making, blinked vacantly at the pile of case files open before him, then at the detective. “A rough sketch of what?”
Without taking his eyes off of the mirror, Del Fuego reached down and picked up a glossy printout, handing it to Bint. He took it and examined it, recognizing it as a still shot from a security camera. The shot was terrible quality, with static blurring most of the view. From what he could see, it was a shot of the inside of a parking deck, totally empty except for a figure standing in the middle of the picture, facing the camera. It looked like a man, dressed totally in black. The quality was just enough that Bint could make out a black tie on a white shirt, sharp business attire, but the face was indistinguishable behind a dark, cloudy patch of static. The figure had one hand clasping his lapel and the other hanging free at his side, and Bint’s heart missed a beat when he realized the figure was standing in what looked like a pile of human limbs.

[Anonymous No.6011901]

>>6011892
“Nobody has a name for him,” Del Fuego said, pacing across the cramped room, “And nobody ever sees his face. He follows people, long enough that they talk about him, spread some stories, get scared, then one day-“ he snapped his fingers.
Waving the glossy print in front of him, Bint protested, “Wait, you’ve got a picture of the guy standing in guts in the middle of a parking deck, and you didn’t get any shoe prints, or clothing fibers? Or… semen samples, or anything? Don’t you have, like, teams for stuff like this?”
Del Fuego turned to Bint, humorless. “That picture never happened.” He took the picture back from Bint. “I saw the footage myself. It was taken in the middle of the day, when the deck was crowded with cars and people. A man named Vincent Lancaster walks into the middle of the shot, then it cuts to this,” he held up the photo of the man in black, “for exactly seven seconds, before cutting back to Lancaster, dead on the ground. Victim number ten.”
The room went quiet, save for the overhead hum of the lights. There was a crackle, and a grating voice came out of a speaker mounted above the mirror. “Max. Get on with it.”
The detective scowled at the mirror, crossing his arms and turning to Bint. “Now’s where you come in, Macyntire. Back on the original killings, years ago, forensics teams were stumped by the bodies. The tissue trauma of the victims,” he slid out an older photo, “though extensive, did not match with the patterns of any known weapon.” Bint leaned over the photo, and immediately recoiled- centered in a camera’s flash reflected in a pool of blood, there lay a man, face-down, with blonde hair, in a sweater, whose body disappeared at the chest. “It was like, either side of the wound just decided to… let go.”
“Max!” the voice came again, “Get to the point.”

[Anonymous No.6011909]

>>6011901
The detective, visibly aggravated, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Those injuries had never been seen before,” he looked up at Bint, “and were never seen again. Until this morning.”
Bint went upright in his seat, interrupting the detective. “Josh! The examiner, he told me, Josh had these injuries, that…” His voice faded as he looked upon the table of evidence.
“That’s right,” the detective continued, “And just this evening, they were seen again on a body found in an alley off University Avenue, lying by the rear entrance of an office registered to a Dr. St. Brutus. Tell me, Macyntire,” the detective planted his hands on top of the table, slowly lifting the brim of his hat up to stare into Bint’s eyes, “Do you know what fear feels like? Not panic, or surprise, not being chased by something, or going off a high-dive- real, true fear, fear that wraps around you, gets tangled and draws tight as a noose, fear too great to name. Have you ever felt that?”
Another crackle of static. “Quit fooling around.” The detective waved dismissively at the mirror, holding his stare.
Bint wanted some diversion, but he knew that if he reached for a picture on the table, his hands would shake, and if he tried to make a snide comment, his voice would waver. All he could do was return the detective’s gaze, hoping, wishing Del Fuego would blink.
He didn’t. Bint closed his eyes and dropped his head, taking a long, slow breath.
“When i was a kid,” he muttered, looking back up at Del Fuego, “Little kid, maybe seven or eight, there was this TV show i used to love, called Candle Cove. It was stupid, really… There were a bunch of puppets, on this pirate ship, and they would get into adventures and-“

[Anonymous No.6011913]

>>6011909
Surprised that the detective seemed to still be listening, he continued. “Well, I had been watching for a few months and was totally obsessed with it, when I saw this one episode… I was alone in the house, and it was the middle of winter, and… I… Here’s what happened. One of the puppets, basically a big pink blanket with a Kermit mouth and googly eyes, gets captured by the bad guy, this bug-eyed skeleton with a weird, wobbly jaw. The skeleton says something angry, and pulls a sheet off of this… this machine… thing. As soon as he sees it, the blanket just goes apeshit, like crying, begging, pleading, and the skeleton just laughs and grabs an edge of the blanket and shoves it into the thing.
“Now, the blanket isn’t crying. It’s screaming. It’s getting pulled into this machine, inch by inch, and is just screaming this horrible bloody-murder getting fed feet-first into a wood chipper agonizing wail. I’m just a little kid alone in the house, too terrified to move, watching this puppet getting eaten alive while the machine starts to spit out shredded lumps of pink fluff, and all the time this fucking screaming won’t stop. So, it gets about halfway up the length of the blanket, and all of a sudden, it looks into the camera- straight at me- and it’s got eyes that are just dots on ping-pong balls that looked goofy, pointed in different directions, but at that second, both eyes look straight at the camera, and I swear to God, I could see his eyes trembling, and… and he screamed… He screamed right at me, ‘I want to die! Bint! KILL ME!’”
He shifted in his seat, rubbing his arms and shaking his head. “My parents said i had a bad dream. I never watched that show again, and i went for years absolutely horrified and not knowing what the hell to be horrified at. So, yeah,” He turned to the detective, “I think i know what that feels like.”

[Anonymous No.6011967]

>>6011913
“Get going, Max.”
Bint felt the warmth drain from the room, and he tried to keep his panic wrapped snug beneath a straight face. Maxwell Del Fuego stepped beside him and leaned in close. “This guy is a ghost that’s haunted investigators across nine precincts, and the first appearance he’s made in three years, twice in two days, are connected to you. Mr. Macyntire,” He leaned in, dropping his voice to a whisper, “I think he might be following you.”

***
Bint turned to face the detective, whose face seemed to betray genuine fear for Bint’s safety. The notion of something terrifying enough to drive Del Fuego to empathy had only a moment to settle into Bint’s mind when the lights blinked off with a click, plunging the room into darkness.
He had gradually forgotten the dull hum of the lights overhead, so that with the hum gone the new silence was vacuous. The quiet was broken by a voice out of the corner of the room.
“Max, what…?”
“I dunno. Shit… Hey!” Bint could make out Del Fuego’s footsteps over to the window, “Hank! What’s the story?”
“Let’s go, Max.” The speakers still worked, so it wasn’t a power outage… Bint thought the sound was a little distorted, though.
“Hank!” The detective growled, tapping on the glass again, “Quit fooling around! I’m in the middle of-“
“Listen…” Marco interrupted, his voice small and distant in the darkness.
“What? What are you-“
“Shhh… listen…” Marco insisted. The chamber went totally silent, but gradually, the three of them could hear it. Shouting. Angry, excited shouting somewhere in the police station, several men yelling indistinctly, loud enough to be heard through the walls.
“Max,” the speaker crackled, “Get going.”

[Anonymous No.6011976]

>>6011967
“Shut UP, Hank!” Del Fuego snarled. Bint heard him pace over to the corner with Marco. “Okay, Marco, I’m gonna check what’s going on, maybe get the lights back on.” There was a metallic rattle of batteries, and, with a click, a flashlight lit two pairs of feet in the corner of the room. “Just keep watch on him while-“
From the direction of the shouting came a sharp pop. The shouting through the wall became even more upset, then some more pops.
Marco’s voice was heavy with worry. “Is… is that gunfire? In the station?”
“Max…”
“Shit!” The flashlight’s ray whipped around the room as the detective leapt for the door, swinging the door open and slamming it shut behind him.
Bint could still hear the shouting in the distance, barely audible over his own throbbing heart. He tried to slow his breathing, telling himself everything was under control, that a police station is the safest place he could be. When the slow, purposeful footsteps moving from the corner of the room reached the table, he held his breath. The old speaker was crackling softly.
“Max…”
Marco’s voice was quiet and hesitant when he finally found the courage to speak.
“The… the blanket…” He cleared his throat. Even in the darkness, Bint pictured him looking disheveled and nervous.
Bint stared blankly into the darkness. “Huh? What?”
“The blanket,” he repeated, “On the kids’ show. …Was his name ‘Pemberton’?”

[Anonymous No.6012011]

>>6011976
A faint, twilight orange glow bathed the room just in time for Bint to see Marco’s haggard bulldog face rounded into an expression of concerned, panicked confusion, staring at Bint, who must have looked just as baffled.
“Maaaax.”
In typical police interrogation rooms, a two-way mirror works fine if the interrogation side is lit and the observation area behind the mirror is in darkness. When the suspects’ side is dark and the observation area is lit, the mirror is basically just a heavily tinted window. Neither Bint nor Marco could tell why the monitor’s perch had light while the questioning room was dark, but neither of them were concerned by that when they could both plainly see, through the muddy orange tint of the glass, that the observer’s room was totally empty except for one man, in slacks and a button-down shirt, hanging motionlessly from the ceiling.
“Max got goooooone…”
Bint barely put out a wide-eyed whimper of terror before a strong, meaty hand locked on his sleeve and yanked him out of his seat. Marco carefully picked out a couple of the folders on the table before he tore open the door and pulled Bint into the lightless hallway of the station.
Marco didn’t pause, and Bint trailed behind him as the officer swept down the black, narrow hallway. Bint felt no impulse to resist as the gunfire, which was louder and closer than it had been before, was behind them as they fled up the hall. Bint could tell Marco knew the station so well that the darkness was little obstruction, and he was struggling to keep close behind as Marco plowed through doors and whipped around sharp turns that threatened to send Bint flapping from Marco’s grip like a towel.
“Uhhhm…” Bint was winded from trying to keep up with the officer, “Is this for real? I mean, it’s a police station, this’ got to be the safest-“

[Anonymous No.6012016]

>>6012011
“Seventeen years,” Marco grumbled, without slowing down or looking back, “Seventeen years at Precinct XVII, never had so much as graffiti on the front of HQ. Out of nowhere, one night, gunfire. Gunfire inside the station. That doesn’t happen, it’s not supposed to happen… not coincidence… this isn’t coincidence, it’s-“ He went quiet, and continued his race down the corridors.
After what felt like hours racing around the labyrinthine halls of the station’s basement, Marco barreled through a door that opened into a parking deck. Glancing around to confirm it was clear of immediate threat, he wheeled around to Bint. Bint stood stammering, unsure of what to say, when Marco spoke for him. “We’re underground. Take the stairs up to the top of the deck, and it’ll let you out at the street on the other side of the block from the station. If you have anything you need at your place, you should pick it up immediately and then find somewhere else to stay- your home might not be safe anymore.” He unceremoniously thrust the file folders he brought from the interrogation into Bint’s hands. “Look at these. You might be able to get more from it than we did.”
Marco pushed Bint aside and stepped back through the door into the dark station. Before the door shut, Bint barked out, “Wait! You’re just letting me escape? I thought i was in custody! Why are you helping me?”
Marco froze. He turned to look helplessly at Bint, at a loss for words, before shaking his head and chuckling. “Seventeen years.” He sighed, looking at Bint like he could hardly believe himself. “Seventeen years I spent acing every psyche profile and personality test the force could come up with. I got the personal fortitude of a brick wall, nothin’ cracks me, nothin’ bends me, nobody talks me out of doing my job. Seventeen years, and I aid in the escape of a suspect just because of the lights, Hank in the window, gunfire, shouting, running down the dark halls, even that dumb kids’ show… I throw my life away because last night, for the first time in seventeen years, I had a nightmare. A nightmare that convinced me that the only way we can solve this case is if I help you escape.”
His face a tortuous blend of trying not to laugh at himself and trying not to cry, Marco shook his head as he returned to the darkness.
“Seventeen Goddamn years…”
With a hearty click of the door closing, Bint was left standing in the parking deck, clinging to the files and frozen in confusion, all alone all over again.

[Anonymous No.6012025]

>>6012016
That's Chapter 7. I hope you enjoyed! Please let me know if there's anything that stands out as something I should change or add or remove, please!

[Anonymous No.6013534]

bamp

[Anonymous No.6014689]

bimp? I appreciate any feedback, the more the merrier