She was just as revolting as he remembered

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

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http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/90580859568/she-was-just-as-revolting-as-i-remembered

She was just as revolting as he remembered but hedge witches didn’t rely on their good looks for customers. Small twigs and leaves were woven into her hair. It was meant to look disordered and scatterbrained but he knew she was anything but. She wore a long kind of cloak that was filthy and reeked badly enough for him to smell it from where he stood.

“What eez eet you be wanting today, mee luvv?”

“Cut the shit, Maggie.” He knew she could speak normally; it was all part of the act.

She laughed; an ugly cackle. “Okay, boy. You had better come in.”

He followed her into her small, thatched roof cottage. The garden was a shambles with plants growing everywhere. Most of them looked like weeds to him. He had to push them out of the way to walk down the path.

She left the fetid cloak hanging in a small room just inside the back door and then she guided him to a much cleaner and neater kitchen.

He wondered if all her clients got this far.

As if she had read his mind, she said, “They usually ask but don’t want to be seen inside the house. I do a lot of business through the front window.”

“The window? Really?”

“That way they aren't in the house. It seems to ease their mind.”

“I see.”

She gave him an appraising look. “What do you want?”

“A potion.”

“I don’t do love potions.”

“I know; I don’t want one.” He sighed. “I want a memory potion.”

“Forget or remember?” Her small, bright eyes studied him.

“Forget.”

“Oh, my boy... that is not so easy.”

He stood suddenly. “I need to...” He moved agitatedly, stopping in front of the window. He stared unseeingly out the window.

“I can’t help you forget. That just takes time... and patience.”

He turned and banged his palms on the table. She didn’t flinch. She was much tougher than she looked.

Placing her weathered palm on top of the back of his hand, she patted him. “Tell you what, love, I’ll put the kettle on.” Water came from a hand operated pump on the edge of her sink. She chattered inanely about the weather and talked to one of her cats as she filled the large iron kettle and placed it on the cast iron stove. She stoked it up and then bustled around cutting up slices of fruit cake and spreading thick slabs of butter on them. She placed the plate in front of him. He was still sitting, hunched over at the table but now his hands were held between his thighs.

She poured the water into a large teapot and a fresh smell of herbs rose.

His face twisted at the odour.

“It’s sage tea; very good for your liver.” She passed him a large chunky practical mug filled with the hot tea. “I would not offer it to you if you were pregnant, but I don’t think there is any chance of that.”

“No.”

He peered into the mug and then took a tentative sip. The cat leapt up onto his lap. He gave it annoyed look but let it stay. Another sip.

Maggie just waited for him to talk. She pushed the cake closer to him, and added a slice of lemon to her own tea.

He ate, he drank, he stroked the cat and eventually, he talked.

Maggie listened.

And when he had finished, she suggested that he might be feeling better.

He gave her an awkward hug and agreed that he did... just a little.

She watched him leave. She didn’t tell him that it was better to remember, because he would need this experience. Getting his heart broken would make him more careful next time. And the next person he fell in love with would benefit. Maybe, if they loved him, he would appreciate them more.

~~~~~

The next day, he came back to chop some wood for her as payment. A month later, he took a kitten with him and she knew he would be all right.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

D in d out

Writer’s Block

A picture says a thousand words. Write them.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about this picture.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

Picture Source: gunnerromantic.deviantart.com

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/66830688259/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words

D was the current drug of choice. Users could be identified easily. They held the cigarette in their hands, but the smoke? The smoke they exhaled hung around their head in a whitish glowing cloud; one that took much longer than normal smoke did to dissipate. They forgot to eat. They forgot to live.

He was thin enough to be an addict so nobody questioned him. His jeans hung on his bony hips and his wife beater armholes were stretched enough to expose the bands of his ribs. The addicts had become so ubiquitous in the city centre where there were plenty of places for them to sleep at night that people barely took any notice of them. He could meander and rave and gesticulate, seemingly without purpose, while all the time, he was inexorably working his way towards the entrance.

He kept hold of the cigarette, not because he was addicted but because he was a pyromancer and he needed a flame source. He was also an assassin. He could conjure flame from nothing, but it was easier to take an existing heat source and magnify it. It would conserve energy and give him more time to fight.

He was an assassin and tonight his target was the CEO and head chemist of a pharmaceutical company. It was a very well-kept secret, but D was not a product of the illegal underworld. It had been specifically designed and manufactured by a company for profits. This company.

The addict staggered towards the entrance and snuck inside.

Only the CEO knew the entire recipe and was so concerned with industrial sabotage that he didn’t write it down. Fool.

~~~~~~

When the alarms wailed, the police hurried all the addicts out of the way of the fire engines and he quietly joined them, stubbing out the cigarette under his heel, and standing for a few minutes with the others of his ilk before creeping over to a waiting vehicle.

“How did all the addicts survive?” his driver asked as they pulled away from the kerb.

He glanced at them, huddling to the side. “They have been through enough.” And more when their supply ran out.

“You’re getting soft.”

“That D stuff is vile.” A glance in the mirror showed the building was well alight. It looked like a job well done. And arson investigators would never be able to identify the fire source.

This was one job he would have done for free; not that he had. His fees were high. He’d need the money to pay for the detox and health clinic. Very secret and very secure. Just as well, he was hungry. It would take him as long to recover as it had to starve his body into this state.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

His smile was pretty difficult to trust

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.org/post/101669665253/his-smile-was-pretty-difficult-to-trust

His smile was pretty difficult to trust. It was perfect. It always was. That wasn’t what she didn’t trust about it.

She had tried to analyse it and she had decided that it was because it didn’t ever quite reach his eyes. For months, he had watched her and smiled at her as she sat at her desk outside of the office until he was given permission to enter. But she knew, that, too was not heartfelt.

He did it so well and so often; it was as if it was a switch he didn’t know how to turn off.

She suspected that he was on autopilot because she was not a beautiful woman, and nobody flirted with her. Except him.

So, without strictly meaning to, she started to take more of an interest in him. Espionage was a dangerous game. The death rate was high. For a long time she had deliberately taken no interest in any of the agents. Just in case.

But he made the Section Head shout loudly enough to be heard from where she sat. It made her chuckle.

And as she read the field reports, she tracked him and she started to care about his welfare. He got the volatile regions. The areas that lacked everything from proper back-up to electricity and running water.

His record was ... well, it looked exemplary if you went by results only. He got the job done, but he cut corners, and he sacrificed contacts. He came back with the results, but his direct boss did not approve of his methods. He broke the rules.

Success in these areas merely ensured that he stayed there. Especially if people the Section Head thought of as more valuable were going to be risked to replace him.

The body count grew. The trail of broken women increased as well, and yet... he kept coming back. There he was smiling at her and flirting the way he always did. A new scar on his face making him look as dangerous as he clearly was.

Asked to complete a list of candidates for a very high risk job for the top department head, referred to only by a letter moniker, she added his name. She knew that the Section Head cared only for results. He should have been on it for his success rate alone and it was an oversight by her boss that she merely corrected. That was what she told herself. Perhaps she was more adept at lying than she had suspected. At least to herself.

He got the job, completed it and almost caused a full interagency war. The scientist he had extracted, under the most extreme of conditions, refused to talk to anyone else but him and that scientist was supposed to be handed over to the Americans. Now, he was indispensable.

When she got home that night her cat was waiting on the back step for her. “Who let you out?” she asked it.

On her bedside table was a box wrapped in pale blue tissue paper. Inside it was a bracelet. It was one of those ones where you added one bead, or charm, at a time. A plain silver band. Plain; like her. There was only one bead and it was a dark maroon that matched her favourite lipstick perfectly.

There was no card, but she knew who had left it.

The next day he was called in. He perched on the edge of her desk rather than sit on a chair. She tutted at him and tapped the back of his hand where a rather obvious and brand new cat scratch resided. He tapped her new bracelet where it lay around her wrist.

She smiled at him.

He smiled back at her and it took her breath away. It reached his eyes.

She realised that it wasn’t that his smile was difficult to trust, it was that he was.

You had to earn it.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

You wake up to your chest heaving and the taste of another man’s blood in your mouth

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/99337312534/you-wake-up-to-your-chest-heaving-and-the-taste-another

AN: present tense messes me up every time, but I think I fixed the errors.

~~~~~~                                                                                    

You wake up to your chest heaving and the taste of another man’s blood in your mouth.

Another nightmare.

You are so tired of these nightmares. It takes hours for the taste to disappear. And days or weeks to work out the identity of the dead person whose blood is in your mouth.

And then the next part of your task starts. It is kind of self-imposed. Nobody makes you track down the body, but experience has taught you that if you don’t find it, you keep waking up with the blood in your mouth. The same blood.

You can’t say how you know it is the same blood, but you know it is. If you don’t look, you can’t sleep, you can’t get on with your life. The dead are so loud. They are insistent and endlessly patient. They have time to wait.

First time, you try finding out who died. Now, you start with a list of all the people who have gone missing. You learned quickly that it was not all dead who used you like this; but only the unfound ones. The ones whose bodies are hidden or lost. The victims of violence. They want to be found.

You are tired of searching alleys, breaking into squats or vacant houses. You have to drive roads to mark the exact spot where a car has driven off the edge; over a cliff or into a wooded gully. You can taste where is the right spot.

With time, you also learn that it is mostly murders that you deal with. Suicides less so. Maybe the victims are more insistent, or angrier? They are demanding.

You got arrested a couple of times. You know too much. You know the location of the body. You are an obvious suspect. Some police start to get to know you. It helps. You have people who would vouch for you.

You have a friend who helps you out. You aren’t sure why she helps you; the whole process freaks you both out. Your friend tries to find a way to make money out of it. Even just to cover costs. Petrol and accommodation cost money. The dreams make it hard for you to hold down a job. You make it more difficult for yourself; closer to the dead than the living. You take too many sick days. You will walk out on a job if you have a contact or a clue. Workplaces tend not to like that.

Your friend starts to take photos; to sell information and images to the press. The police don’t like that, but you need the cash. You are not so sure about it either, but you have to eat. Some grateful families pay you a reward for your trouble; a kind of finder’s fee.

You are not good with dealing with the families. Grief sometimes makes them angry; they blame you. You find dealing with the bereaved more tiring than dealing with the dead.

You exist like this for some time, until your friend asks why it was always the bodies of men that you found. You say that it was only the blood of men you tasted.

And then you start to wonder who does this for the women victims, and how can you find them?

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

The prince of darkness

Writer’s Block

A picture says a thousand words. Write them.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about this picture.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

Picture Source: cyrusnarcissus.deviantart.com

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/100760215609/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words

“Gabrielle, you have to come inside with me,” my friend begged. We stood at the bottom of an old narrow set of stairs, squeezed in between a Greek restaurant and a sex shop. It was that kind of area of the city.

“It’s a nightclub, Kris. What are you worried about?”

“No, it’s not that. I’ve never been here alone. And I need you to come with me. You always tell me to cool it. You drag me home before I do something risky. You’re my conscience.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s wonderful. The only reason you want me to come with you is ‘coz I’m Jiminy Cricket.”

“Who’s Jiminy Cricket?”

“You are sad.”

She grabbed my arm and dragged me towards the stairs. “I’ll pay your door fee.”

“Gosh. Thanks.” She missed the sarcasm. I was interested now. What was she so worried about? It was already late; maybe after 2am. I was ready to go home but something about her excitement appealed to me.

While she paid the door fees to a woman at the top of the stairs who looked like she could do with a good feed from the restaurant next door, I had a look around. “Good Lord, it looks like the contents of a time capsule.” The woman stamped the inside of my wrist.

“What do you mean?”

“1960’s velvet cocktail lounge.” Tiny round tables grouped around a handkerchief sized dance floor.

“It’s brilliantly done, isn’t it?”

I wanted to agree with her, but I had an odd suspicion that it wasn’t a reproduction, but the real thing. And I couldn’t say why I felt that.

“We get a free drink.”

We collected our drinks and took up a position at a table in, Kris assured me, the best position.

“Is there a show?”

“Oh my gaaaawd,” she breathed. “He’s amaaazing.”

“Who is?”

“His name is Guy.”

I sipped my drink, watched with amusement as she bounced on the velvet bench and waited for the appearance of Guy. I assumed he was some kind of stripper. Fine, I’d watch the stripper and then I’d go home.

The lights dimmed, the music changed and, the announcer crooned in a low voice that the prince of darkness was in the house. Kris actually emitted a tiny squeal. I snorted derisively and tried to swallow my drink. After a suitable interval, a man stepped out from the back of the room and arranged himself on a large throne-like chair. He didn’t do anything else, but the crowd was silent. The music playing was some kind of instrumental and sounded a bit like that stuff they called ‘world music’; almost like a very slow old folk dance. But nobody was dancing.

My eyes returned to him. He was thin and leanly muscled, his skin very pale, his hair dark and long. He wore jeans and a button up shirt that hung open and showed an expanse of flat stomach and a hairless chest. He moved in curious way; as if he was moving to slower music than I could hear. He lifted his head and glanced around the room. He gazed at each person in turn. I heard Kris let out a breathy sigh and then his gaze fell on me.

It was literally breathtaking. I suddenly found it hard to breathe. My head spun and I could not pull my gaze away from his. Those eyes.

But I did... I shut my eyes with a force of will and I made my head turn down to look at the floor. When I looked up again, he had moved on.

A hand lifted and made a gesture to an attendant. They spoke quietly. The attendant nodded and moved away, and the gaze of the prince of darkness moved to others in the small bar.

“Isn’t he dreamy?” Kris whispered.

I wasn’t so sure. He was attractive, but it was too much; too dreamy, if that was possible. “I suppose,” I muttered.

The attendant frightened me when he leaned down and spoke in my ear. “He wants to meet you.” He placed two more drinks on the table. Kris looked excited until she realised what he had said.

I shook my head.

“It’s not open to negotiation. You have five minutes,” he added before he walked away.

Kris looked uneasy. “I’ve never seen him ask to meet someone.” She looked torn between jealous and nervous. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged but I was attracted. We sipped at our drinks and I tried to look around to see how others were affected by him. A few looked as if they were having a religious experience. When my time was up, the attendant returned and just stood next to my chair.

I nervously ran fingers through my hair, checked my lipstick and got ready for my royal interview. As Kris had said, I was her conscience, she could be mine. “Come get me if I look like I need rescuing.”

“Sure.”

I stepped across the dance floor to him and he watched me come. He indicated that I should perch on the arm of his chair.

“No,” I said, but it felt hard to deny him. I clutched my handbag to my chest.

He tilted his head; intrigued by my refusal. The attendant didn’t fetch another chair until he was given a signal to do so. I sat. I tried to remember how to breathe. I was starting to wonder if my drink had been drugged.

We sat in silence. I listened to the music and watched my nervous friend. I saw a man lean down to chat to her. He looked up at us before he sat down at her table. I got the idea that he was a plant. She looked pleased to chat. And being distracted, she wasn’t watching me for my signal.

“Did you arrange that?” I asked him.

His mouth twitched into an almost smile.

“My friend says your name is Guy,” I tried.

“Yes. Yours?”

“Gabrielle.”

He repeated it and it sounded so different when he said it. It rolled off his tongue with a European inflexion. Rolled r’s. I shivered. He noticed.

“You will tell your friend that you are going to stay,” he said with an odd intensity.

God, that was hard to resist, but I was determined. “N-no.”

“Gabrielle.” I felt chastised.

“I have to work tomorrow. I will miss the last train.”

He laughed and I swear I felt heat brush down my spine. I noticed people watching us.

“I get what I want,” he said.

“I am not a what.”

“You are a rare beast.” He put so much emphasis on the first word that it felt personal.

“I am not a beast, either.”

He smiled at me and that was almost more terrifying. When I had his full attention it was mesmerising.

“W-why... me?” I struggled to ask.

“Because you deny me.” He twisted in his throne to face me.

Well that was honest. Scary, but honest. “You frighten me.” It sounded like the confession it was. I glanced at Kris but she was severely distracted; leaning in to her guest.

“That is as it should be.” He waved a careless hand at the audience. “They want what they think I am, but if I was that, they would be screaming.”

I took a deep breath. “B-but... you are.”

That delighted laugh rang out again.

“Stop that.”

A languid hand reached out and stroked down my arm. I almost screamed.

“Oh, you are delicious,” he told me. The lightest brush of fingertips left trails down my flesh. He lifted my hand to his mouth and placed a kiss in the centre of my palm.

I looked into his eyes... and that was a mistake. They were so dark and so very old. Older than they had a right to be.

I tried to blink but couldn’t. I felt that heated touch on my body, again; as if by holding my hand it was stronger. The heat brushed down my neck, and lower to caress my breasts. I gasped.

“Imagine, Gabrielle,” he whispered to me. “Imagine what I could do to you.” The heat started to move lower.

“I’ll die,” I whimpered.

He stood, and still holding my hand, he pulled me up to standing. Our eyes were locked. I was aware of no-one else in the room. He stepped backwards gracefully and tugged me after him.

And I went.

But something itched at me.

“My bag,” I said.

“Leave it.”

“I’ll lose my yearly rail pass.”

He chortled. “Gabrielle, you are a delight.” Heat stroked me again. “You may not need it again.”

May? What did he mean?

Another step backwards.

I wanted to say his name. “Guy?”

“Spend twenty four hours with me and then you can decide.”

~~~~~~

I didn’t go to work the next day. My bag was found by the side of the railway line. Kris swore she had last seen me before she went to the club. She remembered me saying I had to catch the last train home.

My body was never found.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

Don’t bleed on my floor

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/99407300861/dont-bleed-on-my-floor

AN: I’ve been messing with an original story about a magic house...

~~~~~~

“Don’t bleed on my floor,” she told the man sitting at her kitchen table and about to pull his boot off.

“It’s just a leech inside my sock.” He looked up at her.

“I mean it.”

“If I make a mess, I’ll clean it up later.”

“You won’t have time.”

“Excuse me?”

“The house... it doesn’t like blood.”

He frowned at her. “The house?”

“Yes. It can’t abide a mess and blood really upsets it.”

“Right.” He pulled at his boot; ignoring her.

She snorted. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She continued to wipe down the counter.

The boot hit the floor and she made a small noise. “Don’t panic,” he said.

Stepping over the shoe, she pulled the back door open and propped it with a door wedge.

He watched her do it and then rolled his eyes.

As he yanked his sock off, a fat leech fell out. It had drunk its fill and then the anticoagulant it had injected into the tiny wound had let it bleed freely. He caught the swollen body before it hit the floor and gave her a triumphant look. But then he put his bloody foot down on the kitchen floor.

There was a moment’s silence and then he shot out of the chair, across the room, out the open door and landed on the grass in the backyard. It looked as if a very large but invisible entity had thrown him out.

He rolled over, sat up and tried to speak. “Wha?”

She peered around the doorjamb. “I told you.”

“What just happened?”

She took pity on him. “Do you want me to bring you a Band-Aid?”

“Please.” He still looked confused.

She grabbed a clean, damp cloth and the Band-Aids and walked out to him. He was glaring at the house as if it had just declared war on him. She sat on the grass and cleaned, then covered the wound. “There,” she said.

He didn’t look appeased.

“Look,” she tried to explain. “I inherited the house. It took me a while to work out its little... quirks.”

“Quirks?”

“Yeah, fine... whatever.” She stood. “Did you want to try again?”

He glanced at the open door. “Your house is weird.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why is it like this?”

She shrugged.

He walked after her but he looked highly suspicious of the house. “I don't like it,” he grumbled.

“You don’t have to; it’s not your house.”

He had been rather hoping to tumble her into bed, or at the very least, kiss her. Now he was wondering what the heck her house did to people who kissed its owner inside its walls?

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014

He’s in the room down the hall… alive

Writer’s Block

In one sentence is the spark of a story. Ignite.

Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a metaphor, a commentary, or a memory about this sentence. Write something about this sentence.

Be sure to tag writeworld in your block!

http://writeworld.org/post/101343784369/hes-in-the-room-down-the-hall-alive

"He’s in the room down the hall… alive."

“Alive?” She looked panicked.

“That’s good news, surely?”

“Ah... yeah... yeah, it is.”

He grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hallway a little to a spot where they would not be overheard as easily. He was her group leader and she was used to following his orders. They battled for the city; a hard pitched battle. One that left more casualties every day. “Talk.”

“How bad is he?”

He studied her. She could walk down the hall and check for herself, but she didn’t. She was asking him. That meant there was some reason why she didn't want to face him. “Did your actions cause his injuries?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“He tried to...” she cleared her throat, “- his usual stuff.”

“Brave and reckless.”

“That’s the one.”

“So why the fear to see him?”

“I don’t-” She stopped talking when she saw his face. “I never could deceive you,” she grumbled.

“No.”

“Is he conscious?”

“Why?”

“He wasn’t before...”

“Ah. I see.”

“No.” She made an abrupt gesture. “No, you don’t.”

“I think I do. I’ve known you for a long time. The only thing you can’t face is yourself. Your own feelings.”

She punched the wall.

“Talk,” he said, “And that’s an order.”

She closed her eyes. The words came through gritted teeth. “I thought he was dying... so I told him... I told him everything.”

“You told him that you loved him.”

Eyes flew open. “How?”

“I just know.”

“He’s awake,” she guessed.

A nod. “And asking for you.”

“No... no, no, no. I can’t do it.”

“You can and you must.”

A heavy sigh. “We need him.”

“Yes.”

“You want him to heal. And breaking his heart isn’t part of that plan.”

“Don’t be stupid, girl. He’s alive because you told him you loved him. He has dragged himself back from the brink of death for one reason, and one reason only.”

She blinked. “Me?”

“You have given him a reason to be alive.” He grabbed her shoulders, turned her to face the length of the hall down which his room was located. “Go.”

She shook her head. “I c-can’t.”

“He needs you. You have stepped with him into every battle so far. Don’t walk away from him now, because you’re embarrassed.”

She took a step and then another. Before the end of the hallway she was running.

~~~~

© AM Gray 2014