Kacey · Writes · Badly

The water rumbled under his feet with a bit more severity than it had the past few mornings. He squished his green-grey toes in the soft mud, digging himself deeper into the riverbank. Looking up at the dawning sun, he felt refreshed and renewed, as if every twinge of hate had been flushed from his body, psyche and soul. Last night's purging had been cleaner than he had in months. At peace with the world, he slowly crouched and fell back into the murky pool behind him, submerging his huge form in the nearly opaque waters.

He brought his protruded face back up to the surface to breathe. Above him, cars passed overhead on the highway bridge. It was Saturday, so the traffic was not too heavy that early in the morning. Knots of his mud dreaded hair floated to the surface with the waterlogged feathers and faded leaves. His flat nose breathed air across the water, causing small waves to tickle his coarse, black lips. He sat up abruptly and shook his long locks, whipping himself in the face a number of times. He stood to his full eight feet and stretched as cat would upon waking. Snaps and cracks escaped his elbows, wrists, chest and knees. Sloshing deeper into the hazy river, he approached a concrete support for the bridge above. Up to his thighs in water he turned his back to the support column and firmly planted a foot on either side of a corner of the base. He reached around himself to the column; keeping his feet locked in place, grabbed the column, and twisted his back to excess. An abrupt series of cracks, blending together into one long groan, rumbled through his spine. He repeated the action to the other side. He then reached up, his feet firmly anchored in the muck, and pulled with all his strength. His sternum produced a heart stopping pop and he exhaled with great satisfaction.

He let go of the pillar and slumped back into the sludge at his feet into a nearly fetal position. Sitting up, he splashed water on his face and finally headed back to shore. Traffic would be picking up soon, and he needed to get back into seclusion. There was no way, however, that he would miss his morning ritual after as powerful a purging as he had experienced the night before. With extremely long strides, he covered the remainder of the distance in short time, and was soon creeping back down into his den, an abandoned sewer tunnel.

The main chamber of the hovel was sodden earth, the tunnel had collapsed years ago after a series of heavy rains and floods. The place was as dark as a moonless night, and remained a fairly constant, pleasantly cool temperature. There was no furniture, but some of the collapsed concrete had been stacked in ways to emulate tables and stools. Even of those, there were few . No guests ever made it down here to dinner. In the farthest corner, almost completely secluded from the main chamber an sight, was a small grotto, within which were matted rags and grasses that made up a sort of nest. Just outside the nest area, was yet another pile of soiled, worn clothing, folded gently aside. A second chamber, just to the right of the entrance tunnel, had a small opening, but widened out into a smaller, yet still spacious room. There was a soft trickle of water in the room as water from the river above, entered through cracks high on the walls and exited through the only remaining pores to the original sewer system. The flow of water kept the room cool and clean. Slabs of meat, carcasses of wild animals, hung from hooks anchored to the ceiling.        

Clumps of dirt no larger than a pebble rolled ahead of him down the tunnel as he trudged forward into the cave. He watched them with eyes that could see through the darkest night and deepest cavern. There was no color to his vision, but he had years of distinguishing shades of grey. He had to slouch to stay clear of the ceiling in the passage, and years of traveling that passage had forced his posture into that slump permanently. He could feel the aches every morning when he woke that came from hunching over all day, and yet it almost hurt more to try to stand straight. He pulled on some of the clothes stacked in the corner. All the clothes were well worn, and most were comically small on him. As he pulled on the clothes, he wondered why he bothered. No one ever came down here and if someone ever did find their way into his home, his nakedness would be the least of his concerns. He struggled with the button on the pants, not made for hands of his size of fingers of their girth. Finally he was content that he could blend into a crowd, in the dark, on a foggy night.

He ripped a limb off of the deer he had slain the night before after the ceremony. Holding the raw meat in his mouth, he fumbled through a small box. He withdrew a book of matches and lit the lantern on one of the concrete slabs in the main chamber, upon which was a book that had somehow resisted all the filth around it. He tamed the wick on the lantern so it would burn with minimal light, while making his oil last as long a possible. He didn't get the chance to go to the store too frequently and had to make his supplies last.

He reached deep into the pocket of the enormous coat he wore and retrieved a short, sawed off pencil, its tip chewed down to a blunt point. He set the pencil, nearly microscopic in his engulfing hands, upon the book. From his other pocket, he produced  an almost pristine white cloth, with which he gingerly dusted the space on the table in front of him. He replaced the handkerchief and reached up to his hair, tying it all back with a single matted cord. He reached out for the book and stopped short, looking at his fingers at length. His black fingernails stood out boldly against his greenish hands, and rose up and away into almost a claw. He scraped mud from the river out from under each of his nails with the longest and sharpest of the ten. Finally, he ran that fingernail along the tough seams of the coat and inspected his nails again, pleased.

At long last, he pulled the book to himself and stated writing upon the first blank page, almost two thirds of the way through. He thought back to the previous night and how Zin had promised a month of freedom from the purging he had prepared. After his walk this morning, and now sitting here contemplating himself and the state of his soul, he believed he would live the next month in peace.

“I pray the serenity will last,” he wrote at length.

Total Word Count: 44,659 (so close...)
Tomorrow's Goal: 46,326

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excerpt:

Deep in the woods, parallel to the stone slab, a motorcycle leaned cumbrously on its kickstand, the pegs sunk in the soil. Signs of the fight here were fading, but not gone, and Burkhard was reading the earth like a story. He saw where the creature had taken down the animal handler, he could read where the dogs had charged in. The stone that had landed on the carnival worker was harriedly cast aside an the pit from which it was exhumed still lay bare to the clear sky above. The patterns of its footsteps were too familiar to him, it moved the same here as it had in his fight to the east. He tried to learn as much about it as he could from the strategic record drawn in the ground.
Reading the earth, he discovered records of its strength and its speed. He found that it fought out of survival or fury, but with little strategy. It relied on its physical advantages more than attack plans. When he examined the stone altar, though, he discovered something else, something more curious than its violent behavior. He found the chain anchors easily enough, but it was the claw marks on the side of the stone that struck him as more intriguing. As he read the scene, the creature had been chained to the block for some reason unknown to him. Maybe there was more to this then they had read into it.

I must be slowing down, or unhappy with my current quality. I think I'm just going to end the damn thing. I feel like I'm drawing it out. I bet if I decided to end it tomorrow, I'd write all 8000 words and finish the story all at once. Then I could start editing and bring it up to 60 or 75K.

Total Word Count: 42,286
Tomorrow's Goal: 43,953 (or 50k+ but I doubt it)

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excerpt:
It was starting to get colder and the highway south started to remind him of the German landscape he’d left behind. Out on the autobahn, there was no speed limit, but on I-90, there was a speed limit. Late at night and in a rush, though, Burkhard completely ignored it. He had to find that boy. He’d thought about him ever since the first night in Gales Ferry when they’d determined that they were being hunted by their own informant. The miles ticked by like a countdown timer, but he didn’t know what they were counting down to. As each mile marker passed, he could see the look in the boy’s face as he disappeared into the woods. There was pain and concern. That boy had died horribly, abused and discarded, but he was somehow connected to all of this. He had somehow brought the two teams together and saved them. Burkhard just couldn’t figure out why, and he had to learn. He felt it was the answer to the whole conflict.
The winding road back to the cemetery was the same as it had been a month ago when they first rolled up in the pickup. He hoped that the cemetery had been restored to a more respectable condition in the time that had passed. Before he even got to the cemetery though, he came to a small bridge that passed over a stream that occasionally grew and overflowed its banks in the spring. Sitting on the side of that bridge, his feet dangling down over the stream, was the boy - Brian. He looked up at the single headlight that stared him down. Burkhard hadn’t even considered how he would talk to the boy, he never thought that the boy would be too young to read. He coasted slowly to the bridge, stopping with the front wheel on the first timber. He stepped down on the kickstand and heaved the bike back onto it, hoisting his leg over the steel stallion.

Ugh, not a good night of writing. I'm achy and unfocused and my writing was extra crappy. This section's gonna need some work come December.

Total Word count: 40,221
Tomorrow's Quota: 41,888

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excerpt:

The door crashed inward into the matchbox apartment, slamming down onto a cheap, some assembly required, coffee table. Following the door, falling in with it, the huge march colored brute toppled over. He bled from a huge wound in his side, ribs exposed, but no other wounds were apparent. He staggered through the apartment as if lost and drunk. Each step tempted a stumble and each stumble crashed into furniture or a wall. Once he’d investigated the entire apartment and determined that the resident, who he vaguely remembered through the clouds of seething anger and pain, he started to actually take in the scene. Even before his destructive trek through the apartment, it had already been a mess. Empty bottles, beer and hard alcohol, littered the floor and furniture. The kitchen was caked in burned or spoiled food, creating a sickening smell that nearly overpowered even the monstrous brute. A set of keys was on the floor behind where the door would have been. The owner of this apartment was in a downward spiral, like himself, and had left uncaringly.
He had no idea how to find Dillan, or how long he would have the strength to look. He went to the linen closet and found a clean hand towel and a bed sheet. Using the two together he fashioned a crude bandage over his gouged torso and headed back out into the pre-dawn light. He hopped and hurdled painfully to the roof of the small apartment building and stared out over the silent city trying to figure out where to find the man that had been his friend. Confused, alone and exhausted, he collapsed on the roof.

Total Word Count: 38,059
Tomorrow's Quota: 39,726

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excerpt:

Its giant hand gripped the edge of the truck, it fingers smashed in a side window as it repeatedly flexed its fingers, tense and confused. But then its vision was flooded with blinding light for an instant, as if it had been attacked by a powerful migraine and set free all at once. It shook it head and growled. Again it happened and again it got more riled up. Who was doing this.
A third blast rocked it so hard it grabbed the edges of the truck to keep from being knocked off, screaming out into the wilderness in pain. From Burkhard’s perception, the thing flexed and howled at him menacingly. In backing up, he’d swapped out cylinders for one loaded with hollow point bullets laced with hematite powder. When the thing loosed its scream, the standoff ceased and Burkhard fanned the hammer, firing five perfect shots into the monstrosity’s chest and abdomen - and one final shot in the head for good measure.
The cylinder was hot from the rapid firing, but the monster had been blasted from the roof of the truck and now lay beyond Burk’s view. Henri watched the arcing flight of the beast and saw it land with a thud on the ground, motionless except for a very shallow breathing. Burkhard approached the truck to get a better look at his kill as Kemal hobbled out to get his first look at it. The three approached cautiously. They’d never seen anything this big or this powerful. Even its breathing, shallow and slow, raised the hairs on the backs of their necks.
The body lay there, measuring almost eight feet tall from head to toe, laid out flat. It’s skin was more grey than green, but it was clearly a very durable hide. It had hair that was more than likely brown, but had been so caked in mud that it took on a more grey tone like its flesh. Henri kept his distance, staying well out of the reach of this thing. Hobbling closer, Kemal knelt to look at its huge hand, outstretched toward the truck. Its fingers ending in bulky black fingernails. They almost looked manicured though, which seemed strange for an unnaturally creature such as this, especially as primal as this one appeared.
Burkhard was the most brash, striding up to it without hesitation to see the damage from the bullets. He had since loaded his gun back up with another cylinder of the same. Stick with what works, he thought to himself. He too knelt down to inspect the wounds. For hollow point bullets, they left very small wounds, no larger than a golf ball, and the one in the head was even smaller. It’s skull seemed to have almost refuse the bullet completely. Confused, he could only find six shots. He could not find the original shot with the regular bullet.
He looked up at Henri and raised his left hand, touching his thumb to his pinky, then awkwardly still holding his gun, used both hands and brought his index fingers together, pointing at each other.
“Six wounds?” he shrugged. Henri looked down at the thing. “You shot it six times.”
Burk cut his hand through the air, shaking his head. He held up his left hand again, holding his thumb to his ring finger.
“Seven?” Henri questioned confused. Then he remembered the first shot. “You’re right, you shot it seven times,” he nodded. Intrigued, he stepped forward to get a closer look. He looked down at the body and stared at its chest, searching for the last wound mixed in between the other five, each the size of a quarter.

Mr. Chopsticks made this both a short and productive day.

Word Count: 35,090
Tomorrow's Quota: 36,757

They're ticking down a few thousand at a time. One more action scene down, two to go.

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excerpt:

Finally, his calm centered, Burkhard squeezed the trigger and the hammer slammed down. The center canine was filled with lead and the two on either side of it, both wearing knives in their flesh, took a fair amount of overspray. He dropped his left hand in front of him, flipping the barrel down as he did so, flicked the cylinder out and onto the ground. In the same movement, his right hand came in, slammed the other cylinder into place and snapped the barrel back into place. All of this took place in a matter of three seconds while he turned to present the monsters with his right side, his ambidextrous right hand raising the revolver back up, freshly loaded with high caliber slugs.
Of course as he did this, the two tainted dogs bucked up and charged. While Burkhard was still in mid reload, Kemal marched forward pulling herbs from a pouch and tossed a handful of small white flowers on the ground before them. The two charging beasts reeled back and howled like their flesh was on fire as they pawed at the ground just past the flowers.
As Henri was about to let lose two more knives, another, larger twisted canine form tackled him to the ground. It was the same as the others, only larger and its long, whip-like tail ended in a quick barb. He was able to roll with the tackle so he faced the beast that pinned him to the ground. In a sudden thrust, he jabbed both daggers into is gut. It leapt back in obvious pain, crimson streaking down its hindquarters leaving Henri free to scramble backwards toward his partners. He nearly toppled Kemal who was still covering the area with the small flowers. The large beast, almost ignorant of the knives in its pelvis, charged again but, like the others, recoiled when it caught the scent of the small flowers. It bowed down and rubbed its face in the dirt as if to get the smell out of its nose.

Tired. Was hoping to increase my lead on myself more, but at least I made Quota and a little more.

Total Word Count: 32,534
Tomorrow's Goal: 34,201

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excerpt:

Seven miles later, the constant tic-tacking from Burkhard’s seat stopped and instead, there came a long sigh. Henri looked over at him briefly to see that he was slumped back in the seat with a fretted look on his face. Henri waved his hand in front of his hearing impaired friend to get his attention, then bounced his hand, held in the shape of a Y on his chin. “What’s the matter?” he mouthed silently.
Burkhard prepared to sign back at safe intervals, but then remembered something he’d worked on earlier in the month but hadn’t been able to test. He pulled up an application on the dashboard computer and plugged Kemal’s hands-free kit into the terminal. He started typing on his portable messenger and the text appeared in large bold characters on the dashboard screen. “I think Gretchen wants more,” it read.
Drawing his flattened hand off of his forehead into a Y shape again, he silently asked “Why?”
“We talk a lot. She says how she likes me. She wants me to go to Germany,” he typed quickly and fluently. “I told her no. I told her I am important here.”
Henri thought about his answer a bit and grew concerned that there was no way he could continue the conversation while driving even taking into account that his signing was much better than Kemal’s and continued to improve. “You go,” he signed. “We okay.” He appreciated the language of his deaf teammate, but he loathed the rudimentary nature of it. He was no poet, but he liked language, and sign language seemed to lack any style in his hands.
Burkhard waved his hands negatively. He pointed at the monitor and then to the microphone. On the messenger he typed “Speak.”
A little confused, Henri spoke quietly so as not to disturb Kemal in the back. “You can go if you’d like, we’ll be okay.” His words appeared on the screen, almost. Due to his lack of intonation and volume, it relayed “You camel food eye. Weave okay.”
Burkhard looked at the monitor and back at Henri entirely confused. Henri shook his head and spoke the same lines slower. This time they appeared on screen correctly.
“What?” came Kemal’s response from the back. “Are we there already?”
“Nah, uh, I was talking to Burkhard.” Henri smiled at the thought while the text popped up on the screen perfectly. Kemal, too tired to even notice the curious possibilities of the statement simply nodded and shut his eyes again. Henri looked at Burkhard and smiled with a teasing nod backwards.
Burkhard tapped out his response. “I won’t leave until we finish. I want to send flowers. An apology.”
“So do it,” he spoke aloud, trying to find a gentle volume that carried the right enunciation.
“Don’t know what she likes.”
“No idea at all?” he asked, but the system didn’t detect the question. He shrugged to show Burkhard he was asking rather than stating a fact.
“No. You have suggestions?” Burkhard knew that Henri had a reputation of sorts. He was no ladies man, but he did well and was known for treating his women right. He claimed it came from his French background, but his family was four generations American and he was really only half French.
“I can only tell you what I’ve been told. The general rule about sending flowers is, if you have no idea what the other person likes, go for seasonal or whimsical.” The text scrolled through a couple of screens, but Burkhard got the idea.

Current Word Count: 30,475
Quota for Tomrrow: 32,142

Tomorrow I should start on Act II officially (though the last couple sections have been distinctly like an Act II in mood and direction)

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excerpt:

As the sun set and the moon rose, you could see them both clearly. The moon was huge, dominating the horizon over the bald hill. Only a single, stout tree stood alone just off of the highest point of the hill. The land belonged to a family of shepherds, but it had been years since they’d actually raised any sheep. Now the land stayed in their family, owned for generations, they could not bring themselves to sell it for any reason, even poverty would not be motivation enough. At the bottom of the hill, the road wound around like a river along the floor of a valley. The center line had faded away completely and the solid grey tarmac crumbled on the edges of its blind lanes. Cars seldom came up this way, the road went nowhere, only to points that could be accessed by larger, more direct routes. The city barely even recognized this as a road anymore. The road itself was named after the family - Lambtown Road.
On the other side of the hill, the ground dropped off more steeply and ran down to a patch of thick woods. There were numerous trails that wove their way through the forest and ran to any number of a hundred locations that were in and beyond the valley below. A small fence ran across the hill just before it got too steep, now it disrepair it kept the sheep from tumbling down into the dark wood and getting lost or dying. Standing atop the hill, against that fence and looking north, stands a sheer wall of limestone as white as a snowy avalanche, reflecting orange light from the setting sun back onto the lonely tree atop the bald knoll.
Standing in that very spot, where the limestone cliff shone on him in a radiant golden glory, stood a man with hair as white as the stone itself He wore a mask of porcelain, mimicking the white of his hair. From behind the mask, the diffused light illuminated two dark brown eyes, so dark that they were nearly black. He was relaxed on the hill as the wind gently tossed his garnet red cloak around, the tips flipping back and forth around his ankles. He gazed out over the hill, the valley, and the cliff face as the sun slowly set. He glanced at his shadow, judging time as if he were the pointer on a sundial the size of the hill itself. It was getting late and his patience would soon wear thin. But at this moment, the moment film makers called magic hour, when the world was cast in sepia tones that made any image timeless, his patience would hold out forever - forever until magic hour faded into dusk.

Entirely written at Hastings, pretty damn impressive. I should write there more often.

It was nice to finally meet another Denton NaNoer. Nice to meet you NinaMonkey

Total for the day: 28,370
Tomorrow's Quota: 30.037

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excerpt:

He heard a shuffle of feet from around the square and turned to see an unexpected covey of clowns strolling through the streets. One, a juggler, saw him sitting on the bench and approached Dillan.
"You look down, friend. Full of grief." The juggling continued, perfectly and hypnotically.
"Rainy Sundays, you know," Dillan said non-confrontationally. He had a distaste for clowns and people who were overly forward. This juggler was both.
"The carnival's in town, if you need some cheering up." He mindlessly changed the momentum of the balls, performing a more complex pattern, but still flawlessly. "We've a fair show, safe enough rides and a laughable freak display."
"You're quite the salesman. Are the tickets too expensive and the food on the edge of toxic?" he said, playing along for no reason beyond loneliness.
"Aye, and if you've a need to use the toilet, you'd be better off in the woods." The juggler smiled an winked, pleased that melancholic stranger on the dreary park bench had played along.
"I don't have any other plans, so I'll give it a thought before I go throwing myself into the river," he retorted with an irony the jester would never guess.
The juggler switched all three balls to rotating all with one hand while he reached into a pouch at his side. He flipped a small beanbag over his shoulder, and kicked it into the rotation with his foot. Resuming his two handed juggling, he casually flipped the small sack, a leather footbag with a smiling sun emblazoned on it, to Dillan.
"Give them that at the gate and they'll let you get in without admission, but ye'll still have to pay for tickets to the rides and shows." He winked again with a mischievous smirk, "But at least ye'll get to see if it's worth your pennies first."
Dillan, holding the ball limply in his hands looked back at the jester. "Might be worth a look." He held the ball before him and nodded. "Thanks."
"Eh, my pleasure," the clown remarked offhandedly. "Sundays are slow, especially dreary ones. I'm just selling my wares." He bowed, all three bags plopping in his hands behind his back as he stood upright again. He backed away, taking his leave and nodding his head in a graceful farewell.
As the jester joined his clowning troupe, Dillan offered a casual wave. The group disappeared around the next bend, leaving him alone again on the gloomy, overcast square. As he sat there, alone, the damp breeze leaving a cool kiss on his cheeks, Dillan pondered the unusual meeting and questioning his eyes and the fact that he had seen horns on the head of the jester.

Holy crap, Nightly Total: 26,451
Tomorrow's Quota: 28,118

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excerpt:

The cave was silent as a mosque and as dark as a tomb. Dillan had a hard time finding the matches so that he could light the lantern. He wanted to leave a note for his Herculean friend, but there was no chance of that happening in the total absence of light that existed in the cavern. After much stumbling, he managed to get the lantern lit and found the nub of a pencil that his friend wrote with every day. He thought about the massive hands trying to grip and manipulate that tiny pencil, it was even small in his normal human hands. He looked around for some paper, but found nothing beyond the journal in on the table. He stared long and hard at it before finally flipping open to the end and writing a note on the last page.
“Morris doesn’t remember anything, its as if the night never happened. Stop worrying.”
As he went to flip the book shut, some of the pages flittered through his fingers and he saw some of the writing flash by. Seeing his name, slowed, but shut the book determinedly. He sat on a stool in the dark silence of that room for quite some time, his hand resting on the top of the journal. Even as much as he knew about his friend, he still knew very little. Dillan felt that he’d always been more open than his companion and was, on occasion, slighted by that. One of the things he’d been told in rehab was to work to create balanced relationships. If a relationship is out of balance, it can be destructive to both parties involved. Balance should be achieved or the relationship terminated.
He was balancing trust and frankness while running his finger along the cover of the heavy, leather bound journal. The journal was thick, almost four inches, and while the pages themselves were also thick, there were still a lot of pages in the book. The edges were rough cut, they were not manufactured. The whole think looked like it’d been bound by hand. Dillan dragged his fingernail across the uneven pages, pulling them apart ever so slightly when one or more jutted out from the rest. Up and down, like on the strings of his guitar, he ran his fingernail, fighting a moral war in his head. He had always been up front and honest with his friend, but the brute had always remained guarded in return. When he finally cracked the book, sliding his finger into one of the slight openings between uneven pages, it was a tergiversation of the relationship he’d worked so hard to build, but he felt justified and that the knowledge he’d gain would only make their friendship stronger. He flipped through pages until he found a reference to himself.

Total So Far: 22,796
     (only 33 words over today... kind of pathetic)
Tomorrow's Quota: 24,463

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excerpt:

It was early Sunday morning and the streets were fairly empty when he left his warren and headed into the city. It wasn’t a crowded, dense city. It was old - classic. So long as he didn’t go down town he’d be clear of most Sunday morning people. This early most people would either be asleep or at church. Dillan had told him the carnival was in town, he had seen the tent but wasn’t sure that it was for a carnival. He wanted to check it out, but he was nervous about his present state of instability. It didn’t help that animals didn’t like him much.
The alley behind the club was completely different in the early morning. There were no menacing shadows to hide himself in, and the buildings that felt like enclosing traps were actually very admirable architecture with deep doorways and picturesque windows. In his rage, in his flight, he’d seen them as nothing but solid walls that towered up into the sky. Standing there in the daytime, with the sun just peeking over the eastern most rooftop, the light gave the alley an a level of encomium that only a photographer could capture, but anyone could appreciate. He remembered why he didn’t leave. He may have never figured out who he was, but he knew where he belonged. He had to find a way to live peacefully among these people who were his unknowing neighbors.
His bright eyes scanned all the corners in the alley for any signs of the footbag or the coat. He only found discarded beer bottles and other such trash. It had been days since the skirmish, but he could still smell the leather and sand of the small beanbag. It was not here though, he could only smell the evidence that it had been. He was not a tracker, he couldn’t follow the scent, he could only recognize it as what it was. He had only one other option.
The colorful tent flapped in the coastal breeze, a crisp coolness in the air from the coming winter. Festive flags on long streamers whipped back and forth, snapping loudly on the heavy winds between the tents and trailers. Even here, in the fairgrounds, most everyone was asleep. He pulled is collar tight around his neck and shook is muddy grey hair as much into his face as he could. His hands thrust deep in his pockets and his shoulders held close to his face, he tried to look as inconspicuous as an eight foot tall titan could in a small New England city. He tried to keep upwind from the more aggressive and easily angered animals’ cages. His scent could possibly make this all go ugly even before he got to where he was going. He passed between tents and games stopping at each door, each flap and each entrance to sniff the air stifled within each structure.

Total Count for the Night: 21,096
Tomorrow's Quota: 22,763

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excerpt:

“Hey man, com’on in. Game’s on.” He seemed to Dillan, to be labored in his breathing, but no worse for wear in morale. His brother jumped up out of the chair next to the bed and went and sat in the one on the opposite wall. “Sit down, man. You’re Dillan, right?”
“Yeah, you got a good memory.” Dillan was a bit concerned by that fact. “You look like you’re doing okay, considering.”
“Well, you know me…” He didn’t. “…I had a hard life, but since I found peace, it take a lot to get me down. Hell, Ray over there’s more broke up over this than me. Way I see it, I got a paid vacation and then some.” He laughed with a bit of a heaving cough, but no less of a smile.
“So, I only heard bits and pieces. What hit you? A train?” He played the act well. He’d played it plenty of times before, for audiences that didn’t know his nearly as well as Morris.
“Oh, well I don’t remember a lot. I remember we went out to check on some dude who’d been standing out behind the club. Folks kept saying how he was just standing back there, kinda creepy. So we go to check it out. Some street junky was hangin out there, waitin to meet someone for a deal’s my guess. But there was some noise off down the alley so I go get the gun from the office.” His expression had become somewhat distant and blank as he got further and further from the truth. It was as if his own mind was hypnotizing him and replacing the truth with rational answers.
“When I get out there, the guys are yellin at someone, so I go to check it out but those rabbits are all scared and runnin. Prolly think its gonna get bad. Well hell, I knew that, that’s why I got the gun. So anyway, like I was sayin, I get there and there ain’t no one left but Kris and he’s shell shocked cause there’s gangbangers at the back of the alley. I fire a shot off in the air to get them to leave, but they jump us. They beat Kris down and drag him down to the street and the rest start runnin off. I follow some up a fire escape when this one WWF wannabe jumps me from behind and gives me some crazy sleeper hold, only he does it wrong and he crushes me too hard. When I hear the sirens, he drops me to the street and I pass out.
“It don’t hurt anymore though, and I’m getting paid to lay here in this bed, so it ain’t so bad. My old lady’s wantin me to get outta the bouncin business, but we’ll see what happens when I get to take off this turtleneck.” He chuckled again, wheezing and squining in pain, his smile never fading.
“Sounds like you had a hell of a night, Morris. A lot more exciting than mine was. I didn’t even do the encore because the crowd was so cold.”
“Well, next time you be sure to come out and join our party, or maybe I’ll bring it in to you.”
“Thanks for the offer but,” Dillan looked him up and down animatedly, “I think I’ll pass. Tough to play the guitar like that I’d think.” He shrugged and wiggled his fingers in front of him.
“True. True.”
“I gotta get going, Morris. I just stopped by to see if you were doing alright.” He thought to himself how impressive the human psyche was to rewrite these inhuman events into something rational and explicable, no matter how unlikely the imagined events may be.
“Cool man, thanks for stopping by. I gotta get back to watchin my boys up there,” Morris indicated to the game on the TV with a nod of his head. “Don’t tell the old lady but I got money on that game, since I have me a little extra these days. You gotta have money to make money, right”
“That’s what they say,” Dillan said absently. “Get some rest and don’t work too hard,” he said as he side stepped out the door.
“You know it.”

Whoo. With the cold spinning my head and all the medication making me see things... I'm amazed I finished for the night.

Total To Date: 19,229
Tomorrow's Minimum Quota: 20,896

---

excerpt:

His hulking body made an impressive silhouette against the rising sun. He sat atop the city hall watching the city wake up around him. He’d lost his coat and his stress ball, but it seamed that the beast was quiet again. He was worried now, though, because the purging was wearing off again. He had to get to Dillan and see what had happened to the bouncers he fought last night. He could remember most of it, but it was like remembering a dream right after waking up, it was full of holes and rapidly fading. He determined that if he stayed on the roof for too much longer, his bare back, mossy green in the morning light, would draw more unwanted attention to himself. He needed to find a safe way home. He dropped into another freefall, thinking maybe he would die at the bottom of this one. On his way down though, he swore he saw a circus tent being erected in the civic center park.
The tent was going up slowly, the wind blowing the thousands of yards of tarpaulin around. Twenty men on a side would pull it down so that the guide lines could be run and anchored. Brad loved the morning that the tent was put up. It made him feel like he was moving into a new home, into a new town, a new beginning, even if he was only going to be there a week or less. He finished up this face paint, filling in the red diamond over his left eye. He was scheduled to go to an elementary school with some of the other clowns and put on a show for the kids. He took one final look at himself in the mirror, buttoned his shirt up over where the white paint started and headed out the door. He picked up a belt pouch full of beanbags on his way out of the trailer.

Updated Total: 17,287
Tomorrow's Goal: 18,954

---

excerpt:

Hours passed, as did the couple, but he still crouched in the shadows, feeling every emotion out with an fine toothed comb. No sensation seemed out of check, nothing seemed to rage beyond his control. Hope turned up the corner of his black lips ever so slightly. He wanted nothing more than to share this excitement with someone, as the couple had shared their love, but he dared not curse his chances. He raced back to his cavern to journal this for his future perusal. At least that way, if this was not the final stage of his redemption, then he would be able to look back on it fondly when his wrath made the world and all his effort seem dismal. In enormous strides, bounding practically from street corner to street corner, he was soon descending into the river valley in a maddening freefall. As always, the worst part of the fall was the landing. Few people would be killed from a similar fall, but fewer still would walk away unscathed. He hit the water at terminal velocity, sending a spray of silt laden mist high up into the air. The surface was like that of a solid object when he hit, but then, as the water accepted him, he sank like a stone into the murky depths. After a few final bubbles he was gone, immersed within the obscuring riverbed.
Beneath the darkened surface, his force of will fighting off the possibility of drowning, his body cracked and popped as joints reset and bones knit themselves back together. He had hit the water hard, but what really hurt him was the concrete structure beneath the water, the supports for the bridge he had jumped off of. Blood mixed with the inky flow of the river, but none would be witness to it. By the time the dawn came, the blood would have washed away and his shoulder would be fully healed. Relying on his uncanny vision, he swam to shore and limped from the depths of the river into the depths of his cave, leaving wet footprints behind. They too would be gone by morning.

End of the day Total: 15,510
Tomorrow's Quota: 17,177

---

excerpt:

At the mouth of the tunnel, the sun was resting on the horizon, turning the sky a brilliant orange. Streaks of gold and bronze pierced the parting clouds above and the phenomenal form in front of Dillan exuded a wave of awe and admiration toward the beauty of nature. Unexpectedly, the encompassing coat was cast to the ground and his eucalyptus skin shown as an almost human color in the orange light of the setting sun. Turning suddenly, he met Dillan’s eye with the gleam of a bewildered child. “Where can we go so I can eat some of your finest foods? I feel like being one of you tonight!”
Dillan shook his head amazed at the transformation of his friend. The last time he’d seen him, almost two weeks earlier, he had been little more than a mass of angst in his darkened warren. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t light the lantern, he wouldn’t accept Dillan into the room at all. The only thing he’d said to Dillan in the last twelve days was “leave.” Here he was, now, almost completely reborn into an unfettered soul, not only free of his fears of the city, but also his fears of himself. Something truly great had happened last night.
“I hate to say it, buddy, but I’m not sure where wolfboy and the pinhead get their dinner, but I don’t think its at Le Fenouil. How about I go in and get something to go at Giordano’s and we’ll eat in the gazebo in the park.” In the past, he’d be afraid to suggest a plan that wasn’t devised by his mammoth mate, but today all he got back for his proposal was a quick frown followed by the enlivened spark and a smile. Dillan watched him pick up his coat and swirl it around him in a most dramatic fashion.
“Well let’s go then, I’m hungry for luxury,” he exclaimed in that impossibly deep voice with a smirk. “Well, as much luxury as one can enjoy in my size pants.” Dillan looked down, confused and saw that his pants were about seven inches too short. He snickered as his friend shrugged his broad shoulders.

Nightly Total: 13,818
Tomorrow's Goal: 15,485

---

excerpt:

The water rumbled under his feet with a bit more severity than it had the past few mornings. He squished his green-grey toes in the soft mud, digging himself deeper into the riverbank. Looking up at the dawning sun, he felt refreshed and renewed, as if every twinge of hate had been flushed from his body, psyche and soul. Last night's purging had been cleaner than he had in months. At peace with the world, he slowly crouched and fell back into the murky pool behind him, submerging his huge form in the nearly opaque waters.
He brought his protruded face back up to the surface to breathe. Above him, cars passed overhead on he highway bridge. It was Saturday, so the traffic was not to heavy that early in the morning. Knots of his mud dreaded hair floated to the surface with waterlogged feathers and faded leaves. His flat nose breathed air across the water, causing small waves to tickle his coarse, black lips. He sat up abruptly and shook his long locks, whipping himself in the face a number of times. he stood to his full eight feet and stretched as cat would upon waking. Snaps and cracks escaped his elbows, wrists, chest and knees. Sloshing deeper into the hazy river, he approached a concrete support for the bridge above. Up to his thighs in water he turned his back to the support column and firmly planted a foot on either side of a corner of the base. He reached around himself to the column, keeping his feet locked in place, grabbed the column, and twisted his back to excess. A abrupt series of cracks, blending together into one long groan, rumbled through his spine. He repeated the action to the other side. He then reached up, his feet firmly anchored in the muck, and pulled with all his strength. His sternum produced a heart stopping pop and he exhaled with great satisfaction.
He let go of the pillar and slumped back into the sludge at his feet into a nearly fetal position. Sitting up, he splashed water on his face and finally headed back to shore. Traffic would be picking up soon, and he needed to get back into seclusion. There was no way, however, that he would miss his morning ritual after as powerful a purging as he had experienced the night before. With extremely long strides, he covered the remainder of the distance in short time, and was soon creeping back down into his den, an abandoned sewer tunnel.

After a HARD day's night, I finally got my quota and more. Tomorrow I'm starting earlier damnit.

Total to date: 12,030
Tomorrow's Goal: 13,697

---

excerpt:

“Screw this.” Grant snarled, tossing his gear into the bed of the truck. “Three foreigners, probably illegals. And one of them’s deaf. What’re they talkin’ about over there. They’re here to mess with us, I can feel it.” He opened the back door of the cab and pulled out a pair of sneakers and started to take off his hiking boots.
“ I dunno, Grant. I think they’re alright. They saved our asses.” Emmett rubbed his eyes, squinting as he tried to get the dirt and sweat out. “We’d be toast if they hadn’t shown up.”
“What the hell, are you blind?” His boots slammed against the opposite door, showering the back seat in dirt and mud. “They were there before us, they probly woke them things up before we even got there. They want us for something and they ‘saved’ us to get on our good side. They want us to owe them. Well I ain’t buying.” Grant ran his filthy hands through his dirty blond hair, his fingers getting caught in various knots and tangles. “I’m through with this gig. Soon as I get outta here, I’m quitting the team, and if Jack over there is spilling all our secrets to the frog squad there, then I’d suggest you get out, too. They’re gonna know everything about us before morning.”
“But what about Jack and Stan, man? We can’t just leave ‘em.” Emmett jammed his hands deep in his pockets, rolling the pocket lint in his fingers nervously. He didn’t know what was going through Grant’s mind, but Grant being the loose cannon of the group, it could go either way.
“Jack’s lost, dude. Look at the way he and the mud people are gettin’ along.” He nodded over at the picnic table where Jack, Kemal and Henri talked conspiracies and hidden agendas. Stan still sat silently, shaking slightly. “And Stan, dude, he’s gone. Pat’s buried up on that hill and no ones ever gonna know where he went or why he’s gone. Its sick, but it’s true. Stan’s never gonna get over it, so we gotta get over him. I say we check out now before the waitress comes around with the bill.” Having said his piece, Grant hopped out of the truck, slammed the door and walked around to the driver’s side flipping a set of keys around his index finger. He was making sure to be flashy enough that no one would notice is hasty exit. Diffident, Emmett looked at the passenger door with hollow eyes. He turned back to see Jack’s reaction.
Oblivious to the drama transpiring only twenty feet away, Jack continued. “I ain’t gonna go up against these things again. I already screwed up too much, I ain’t takin that chance again.” He looked at Stan who had reached a fairly catatonic state. He reached over and put his hand on Stan’s shoulder, holding it there for a second. Stan relaxed visibly, his eyes focusing again on his hands at least. He slumped forward, his back releasing its tension. “Thanks.” He breathed almost imperceptibly, putting his hands on the table and his head on his hands.
“I ain’t going back out there,” Jack repeated soberly. “But I’ll help you out however I can.” He rapped his knuckles on the table and looked right into Kemal’s eyes, “whatever you need.”
The engine in one of the yellow pickups roared into life like a threatened lion. The entire truck lurched as it was thrown into gear and the four of them were sprayed with sand and stone as the wheels spun out and the pickup sped off into the early morning on screeching tires. Deadpan, almost monotone, Stan commented into his arms, “Looks like they’re done with all this, too.”

I could probably write more, but my neck aches and I'm not in the mood to stay up as late as I did last night. I blew of NaNo all day and was aware of the concequences. As a result, I only wrote 1,368 words today. To be fair though, I discovered that the five astricies I was using to break sections were being counted as five words each, so I actually lost about 15-30 words by taking them out. I felt like they were cheating my word count.

Anyway.

Final word count for the day: 10,113 (broke the 10k checkpoint)
Tomorrow's goal: 11,781

I don't forsee it happening, but I'd be eccstatic if I could clear 20k by the end of the weekend.

---

excerpt:

“What were you doing out there Jack?” Kemal asked absently as he looked down to the digital video recorder on the table, making sure it was recording. Without moving his head, he turned his steel blue eyes on the apparent leader of this group sitting opposite him. “Why did you show up to the same graveyard we were investigating? Who tipped you off?”
“We got a source, he tells us when and where somethin’ is s’posed to happen.” Jack reached into his jumper and pulled out a folded up lump of paper and dropped it indifferently on the flaking painted wood of the table. “All’s he said this time was it was gonna be big, possibly resurrection, possibly possession, possibly both. So when things got bad and you fellas came over the hill, we thought we’d gone from bad to worse. Ya don’t know how glad I was to see yer friend over there fillin them things with led.”
“Salt and Silver,” Kemal corrected. As if to hammer home the point, Henri took his blade, still encrusted with the black ichor from the dismembered terror, and stuck it into the wooden table, standing straight up like a pillar of death.
“Silver,” he said flatly.
“And salt,” repeated Kemal.
A look of dread crossed Jack’s face as he realized how little he really knew. His solid vow to free the world of the unnatural and an extensive supply of ammunition were obviously not all the tools he needed for this line of work. He looked at his partners, Emmett, Stan and Grant and found that none of them would look him in the eye. Emmett and Stan sat at the far end of the table, the later covered in the blood of his lost brother. Emmett just sat staring at a flake of paint in front if him, nearly catatonic. Grant watched Burkhard very closely. He had yet to make up his mind about the deaf guard.