Ever wondered what my little old rpg stories would look like as a word cloud? Now we know!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL... whatever the Hell I am...
If you are one of the rare Americans that isn't living a life of quiet desperation why not donate a few virtual dollars to my strange little blog?
(Recommended Reads) 'Love Lies Bleeding' by techtigger
The grey plains were always so deceptively peaceful. Grimm waited there, somewhere between the realms of life and death, for the attack that he knew was coming. He shape-shifted quickly from a hound to a man, and took up his armor and sword. Nox would be vulnerable while she fought to free Loki, her attention focused solely on the battle around her. The spirits of the Shadowkin would not be able to resist the chance to kill the woman who had destroyed so many of them. It would be up to Grimm to keep them from getting her...
(Recommended Reads) 'Walking circles around the church' by Phenora
A long time ago now, maybe 7-8 years ago, I was on my way home from a party with a girl named Emma that I met just down the road, she stopped me and asked me if she could walk with me, it was probably around 3-4 in the morning and I figured she had attended the party aswell, so I said sure, it would be nice to have some company on the way home. It was a beautiful night, there was a silence that only a snowy night can create, and the moon was barely peeking from behind the dark clouds but everything still seemed so lit up, the only thing you could hear were our footsteps in the snow and our voices, muffled by our scarves...
(Recommended Reads) 'White Wedding' by Virginia Moffatt
"You didn't get married then?"
Sylvie shook her head.
"Wow, that's...I mean...I thought you two were so close." Sophie's green-black eyes shimmered her concern.
"We were..."
(Recommended Reads) 'Parallax the Rogue' by Michael Rob Matthias Jr.
His name was Parallax and he was a rogue. The horses behind him didn't have a chance...
Friday, September 30, 2011
THE LOCAL HEROES: Apocalypse Jones And The Race Against Time - Epilogue
Apocalypse Jones
And The Race Against Time
by
Al Bruno III
Epilogue
The Beginning Is The End
The citizens of River City rarely looked up in the sky anymore. If one of them had looked up they would have seen a flying man. They might have noticed the silver costume he wore and likened it to something the astronauts from 2001: a Space Odyssey had worn. Their eyes might have been drawn to the glowing bird-shaped insignia on his chest. They would have noted that he wore a helmet of metal and tinted glass that was deliberately avian in design. They might have gasped at wonder when they saw the rocket-mounted wings of metal strapped to his back. None of the citizens of River City noticed any of this because they had learned long ago that it was better to watch your back than to bother with the stars.
When the flying man was at street level he began careening through the alleyways and side streets until he came to the intersection of Miller and Fifth. That was where an armored car had been tipped over on its side. The doors had been torn off the vehicle and the guards were unconscious. There was a figure of monstrous proportions rooting around inside the armored car. The flying man recognized the villain known as Crazy-Face.
Crazy-Face’s body was grotesquely muscled and his head was a rounded cone of liquid that slowly bubbled and frothed. Inside that fluid parts of a face shifted this way and that, taking on one impossible arrangement after another. He grabbed two bags of cash from the armored car and turned just in time to see that flying man speeding towards him.
The villain threw one of the bags of cash at the flying man and knocked him out of the sky.
The flying man hit the pavement and skidded into the side of a parked car. Fifty dollar bills fluttered down around him.
“I don’t know who you are,” Crazy Face dropped the other sack of cash, “but you just made a big mistake.”
“I’m Peregrine,” the other man pulled himself to his feet. His helmet was dented on one side and the tinted glass had cracked. He fired a bolt of concussive force from his glowing chest insignia, “And I’m bringing you in.”
The blast knocked Crazy-Face backwards but he stayed on his feet.
Peregrine increased the force of the concussive force but the villain push towards him with all the ease of a normal man walking through a windy afternoon.
Wing rockets roared to life as Peregrine tried to reclaim the high ground. He felt the familiar force of areal acceleration begin.
Then it stopped and he hovered in place. Peregrine looked down to see Crazy-Face had grabbed hold of his leg.
The villain laughed and threw him into the underside the armored car.
A muffled crash filled the air but neither man noticed. Crazy-Face was too busy having fun. Peregrine was too busy trying to get back into the air.
The rocket wings roared to life again. They sputtered and coughed before tearing off the back of his costume and careening into the night.
Peregrine watched them go and mumbled, “Well fuck me.”
Then Crazy-Face had him, lifting him off like he was no more than a child in a dime store Halloween costume. He said, “I don’t know who you are but I’m going to crush your pelvis.”
“I told you! My name is Per-” Then would-be superhero began to screamed.
Click.
Click.
Boom!
At first Peregrine thought the sounds were just a figment of in his head but then the pain stopped and something warm and oily splashed over him.
The sounds began to make sense, the crash of gunfire and the dry crack of an empty barrel. Suddenly he was dropped to the ground. Sparks danced before Peregrine’s eyes and when they cleared he saw Crazy-Face lying beside him. The top of his lava lamp head had been shot away.
“Sidney!” a voice called, “Sidney?”
He sat up, too dazed with pain to panic at the thought of his secret identity being compromised already. There was a woman running towards him. His gaze went from the gold jumpsuit she wore to the revolvers she carried. She was wearing a crash helmet and goggles but there was no hiding the beauty of her dark, aristocratic features. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“I think... I think so.”
The remains of Crazy-Face’s head fluid was running down the street to the storm drain, carrying the villain’s lips, nose and right ear along with it. Peregrine was too busy staring at his rescuer to even notice. Before today he would have said that love at first sight was a charming notion and a biological improbability. Now he knew better.
“Can you walk?” the woman in gold put Perigrine’s arm over her shoulder and gently lifted him, “By the way what year is it?”
“Uh...” His legs were wobbly, the woman in gold was almost carrying him, “March... 1971.”
She laughed as they made their way to a nearby alley.
“Did I say something funny?”
“I think the joke is on both of us Sidney,” there was a complicated-looking motorcycle parked near the alley wall. It was smoldering slightly.
Peregrine pulled away from her, wobbled for a moment and then steadied himself on a Dumpster, “How do you know my name?” he demanded, “Who are you?”
“They call me Apocalypse Jones,” her grin became mischievous, “and I think you and I are going to be seeing a lot more of each other in the future.”
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
THE MASK COLLECTOR (a serial novel) chapter seven
IN THIS TWILIGHT
The Mask Collector
Chapter Seven
Saturday August 2nd 2003
“Jesus buddy you look terrible,” Chad stood at the bottom of the stairwell, a thick parcel under his arm. He shook his head at the sight of Darren.
“Who were you talking to out there?” Darren knew how he looked, his beard had grown bushy while his midsection had grown mushy. He promised himself that as soon as the pins came out of his leg he'd start exercising again. Not jogging but definitely exercising. Maybe he would join a gym.
Chad met him at the top of the stairs, “You need to eat more white rice. You should try it. White rice. And cook it yourself, don’t order it from a Chinese restaurant, heck I bet half those people are illegal immigrants with SARS.”
“Who were you talking to out there?” Darren asked again.
“Some guy,” Chad started walking again, he unlocked the door to his apartment, “He was asking for directions.”
“He was in a black Trans Am,” Darren followed him, his crutches slowed him down considerably. “Did you get the license plate number?”
“You spying on me?” Chad smiled, “You should get a hobby or the Internet. It would be a lot more interesting.”
“Did you get the license plate number?”
“No. Why would I? It was just some guy.” Chad opened his front door and said, “Come on in.”
“My hit and run was a car like that,” Darren followed him. The apartment was dank and crowded with boxes, they filled every corner and were piled on every table and chair. He wrinkled his nose at the cloying odor that assaulted him.
Gah! It smells like sour milk and sweaty feet!
“I don't know how to tell you this buddy but there is more than one of those cars out there.” Chad set his newest parcel atop the four already sitting on his kitchen counter. A startled spider scuttled across the Formica, Chad flicked at it half-heartedly, “Now when I was a lad I had a black Monte Carlo. It was a great car, and a back seat big enough to screw in. These cars nowadays have no room in their back seats. I bet it’s because of all the rich white Christians running car companies.”
Darren leaned forward on his crutches, “Where was he asking directions for?”
“Galena Top Fuel Company. They have an office somewhere near the Port of Albany. He was really lost.”
“Galena Top Fuel? My f- I mean ex-fiancee works there.”
“Small world,” Chad pulled a water bottle from his refrigerator, and took a drink; the water was tinged with brown. “So do you wanna see my collection?”
“Collection?” Darren looked around, “Your box collection?”
“Very funny. These are just the things I haven't unpacked yet,” Chad led him to the next room, “these are what I'm most proud of.”
For God's sake just get out of here before this funk follows you home.
But Darren decided he wanted to see this 'collection', if for no other reason than the fact it was in the room that bordered his bedroom. Maybe now he could see what all the noise was about. The voices and rustling sounds were waking him up less and less but Darren wasn't sure if that was because he'd gotten used to it or because he'd gotten into the habit of having a few hydrocodone pills and a beer for a nightcap.
“Well...” Chad said, “What do you think?”
Masks hung like trophies, ordered rows of them stretched from ceiling to floor, from wall to wall. Grinning Guatemalan jaguars hung beside African tribal headdresses sculpted from bronze. A crinkled dime store Halloween false faces from a generation ago alternated between gas masks from the first and second World Wars. Caricatures in paper-mache and elegant, expressionless faces sculpted in ceramic and ivory leered at him. Darren said, “This is impressive.”
“Yeah. See that there? That is a first generation Humboldt, and that's the Gimp mask from Pulp Fiction, and these are Seneca corn husk masks. Oh and that one over there is a Singbonga...”
Everywhere he looked Darren saw something new, a flash of color or a strange contour of wood or metal. The collection looked like it belonged in a museum. In fact to Darren it looked bigger than anything you might find in a museum, it left him wondering about the dimensions of the wall the shared with the man.
“And of course the centerpiece is this baby. Nobody else has one of these,” Chad pointed to the shape dead center in the wall, the one Darren realized that his eyes had been shying involuntarily away from.
The mask was snout-like and pale. There was something both mechanical and bestial about it. It almost looked like a gas mask but a highly stylized one. There was something about it that suggested to Darren great age but the way the eyepieces glinted suggested it was brand new.
Isn't that... Darren blinked. Didn't I see it in my dreams?
“This is the Hierophant’s Vizard. Not the original but one of the first.”
No that's crazy. You dreamed something else. This is like deja vu. Or you read it in a book or saw it on a TV show.
“Is it some kind of a boogie man?” Darren asked.
Chad shook his head, “No, more like what you would think of as an angel but that’s only because the so-called academia of this Jesus freak country have blunted your mind.”
“Looks more like a devil to me.”
“Angels and devils are the same things. I know your dumbed down generation may have a hard time grasping that, but angels and devils are both autonomous agents of a higher power, deities that serve deities.”
“I think I understand.”
“They say the gods- the real true gods of Earth- are waiting for the Hierophant to wake them...” a wistful smile spread across Chad’s face, “All the Hierophant asks is obedience, a prayer here, a sacrifice there. No tithing, no choirboys, no life filled with repression and regret.”
Uneasy sensations started to itch through Darren’s mind. He began to wonder about his sanity. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to go back to his apartment and his TV and his pills, “Well listen sorry to bug you about that car. It just looked like the one that hit me.”
“Post traumatic stress,” Chad ushered him out the door, “you need to get some sunshine or some pussy.”
“What do you do with all those mask things? And how do you afford it all?”
“While my dissertation may be dead my work goes on, not dead but merely dreaming you might say.” Chad chuckled, “And I have a patron to help me along the way. Great potential is seen in my work.”
“And what are you doing all night in there all night by yourself with those things? I can hear you sometimes.”
“What do you hear?”
“Voices.”
“That’s just the TV I’m afraid. Just like every other spoiled lazy American I the networks numb me into complacency.”
“But-” Darren turned to speak but the door was already closed.
But there's no TV in that room.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
DOLLAR BIN HORROR goes full BASKET CASE
Naïve Duane Bradley arrives in New York City carrying a basket containing his monstrous parasitic half aborted twin, Belial, who is so inhumanly malformed that the few people who know of his existence doubt he can even be considered a human. After their mother died giving birth to them, the conjoined twins' father loathed the sight of them and referred to them simply as "the child and the monster". Embittered by the death of his beloved wife, he turns to three doctors who are his last hope of separating the twins so that Duane can have a normal life and Belial will hopefully die. Surviving the operation, the twosome track down and murder the three doctors responsible for separating them. It is shown that they have a telepathic ability between them, allowing Belial to communicate with Duane. After separating, Duane meets a girl named Casey, a hooker who lives in the Hotel Broslin. He also meets Sharon and they start a relationship. One night Duane has a nightmare that Belial will eventually rape or hurt Sharon as he eventually does....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)